FALL 2020 volume 7 issue 1

3 From Rutherford Hall Dr. Barry J. York

4 Be Holy For I Am Holy: The Doctrine of Sanctification in Leviticus 20:7-8 Dr. C. J. Williams

10 John Owen: Perseverance and Mortification in the Christian Life Dr. Richard C. Gamble

18 Warfield on Sanctification and Eschatology Dr. Jeffrey A. Stivason

27 How Sanctification Works: The Westminster Assembly And Progressive Sanctification Rev. Keith A. Evans

37 The Right Channel of New Obedience: Sanctification in The Sum of Saving Knowledge Dr. David G. Whitla

51 Keeping Nothing Back Which May Promote Holy Ends: Westminster on Preaching and Sanctification Dr. Barry J. York

STUDY UNDER PASTORS

The theological journal of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Description Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal is the online theological journal of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal is provided freely by RPTS f aculty and other scholars to encourage the theological growth of the church in the historic, creedal, Reformed faith. Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal is published biannually online at the RPTS w ebsite in html a nd pdf. Readers are free to use the journal and circulate articles in written, visual, or digital form, but we respectfully request that the content be unaltered and the source be acknowledged by the following statement. “Used by permission. Article first appeared in Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal, the online theological journal of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary (rpts.edu).”

e d i t o r s

General Editor: Assistant Editor: Contributing Editors:

Barry York Robert Kelbe Keith Evans David Whitla [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

a r t i c l e s The Editorial Team of Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal selects individuals to contribute articles and does not receive unsolicited works. When a request for a submission has been made and accepted, articles should generally be about 3,000 to 6,000 words in length and should be submitted to the General Editor. Articles should use clear, concise English, following The sbl H andbook of Style (esp. for abbreviations), supplemented by The Chicago Manual of Style. They should consistently use either UK o r USA s pelling and punctuation, and they should be submitted electronically as an email attachment using Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx extensions). issn 2 377-7680

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From Rutherford Hall Dr. Barry J. York

President and Professor of Pastoral Theology and Homiletics Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

On the second floor of Rutherford Hall here at Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, you can find our Rare Books Room. As you walk in, you are hit with the elegance of the Delft tile fireplace, the beautiful wood trim and bookcases, and the musty air that only historical books can produce. The oldest book in our collection is a Chaldean grammar dating from 1527—making it almost 500 year old! The thematic cover of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal is a picture of books found in the Rare Books Room collection.

Beyond housing the books that scholars love to use in their research, our Rare Books Room is a visible reminder. Because our God does not change, neither do our doctrines. Though the truths of God's Word are clarified and further insight given by His Spirit from one generation to the next, the eternal truths of the Scriptures are as constant as the Lord who gave them to us.

Because of our commitment to the theological boundaries we have inherited from our forefathers, the faculty of RPTS enjoys preparing for our Westminster Conference each year. Given an annual theme, our professors then dig into the writings of those who came before us on a given topic fitted to that theme and share their findings in lectures. Those lectures eventually turn into the articles that are published in this journal.

This year's theme was "Further Sanctified: Really and Personally." On the topic of sanctification, the professors presented their work from such areas as Old Testament studies, historical theological developments, and practical theological applications to counseling and preaching. I trust that, as you read these articles or go and listen to the lectures that were given, you will experience in part the answer to our Lord's high priestly prayer. "Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth" (John 17:17, ESV). Thank you for reading!

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Be Holy For I Am Holy: The Doctrine of Sanctification in Leviticus 20:7-8 Dr. Clayton J. Williams

Professor of Old Testament Studies Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am the LORD your God. And you shall keep My statutes and perform them; I am the LORD who sanctifies you. Leviticus 20:7-8 (NKJV)

Introduction John Owen said, “Among all the glorious works of God, next unto that of redemption by Christ Jesus, my soul doth most admire this of the Spirit in preserving the seed and principle of holiness in us, as a spark of living fire in the midst of the ocean.”1 What child of God cannot share in Owen’s praise of this sovereign work of sanctification? So glorious is this work of God , (Y HWH Mĕqaddišĕkem) ְיהָ ֖וה ְמ ַק ִדּ ְשׁ ֶֽכם that He revealed Himself to His people by the divine name “The LORD who Sanctifies You.”2 This paper will explore the meaning of this divine name, and the “spark of living fire” that is His work of sanctification, primarily as it is expressed in Leviticus 20. “Be holy, for I am holy” is the recurring phrase and theme of the Book of Leviticus.3 The apostle Peter repeats it in 1 Peter 1:16, reminding us that this is no Old Testament ceremonial theme that is passing away, but rather an abiding principle of the Covenant of Grace for all time. The imperative “be holy” is based on the divine indicative, “I am holy,” teaching us by a simple equation that it is God’s will for us to be like Him in holiness. But before we can grasp the imperative, we must first understand the indicative. What does it mean that our God is holy? The Divine Indicative Much has been written on this exalted theme, but in its most basic sense, the holiness of God denotes His transcendent and complete distinction from His creatures and His creation. Some theologians have called this His “majestic holiness.”4 In a narrower sense, Scripture also speaks of God’s holiness as His moral perfection and separation from all that is evil. We might call this

1 John Owen, T he Works of John Owen, vol. 3, (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1965), 397. 2 Ex. 31:13; Lev. 20:8; Ezek. 20:12. 3 Lev. 11:44, 11:45, 19:2, 20:7, 20:26, 21:8. 4 Louis Berkhof, S ystematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 73.

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His “ethical holiness,” which Louis Berkhof defines as “that perfection of God, in virtue of which He eternally wills and maintains His own moral excellence, abhors sin, and demands purity in His moral creatures.”5 With that last phrase, that God “demands purity in His moral creatures,” we move from the indicative to the imperative. The fact of God’s holiness becomes an imperative for His people who are saved by grace to reflect His image. As mere men we cannot possibly be holy in the precise way that our God is holy, but our calling to holiness is meant to reflect as humans both aspects of God’s holiness as defined above. We are separated from the world and unto God our Savior, which is a definitive act of God’s grace. More particularly, we are to be separated from sin and evil, which is a progressive work of God’s grace. It is this progressive work of God’s grace that the Westminster Shorter Catechism focuses upon in Question 35: “What is sanctification? Answer: Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.” By saying that it is a “work of God’s free grace,” the catechism acknowledges that sanctification is monergistic, that is, entirely a work of God. Nevertheless, by saying that “we are enabled more and more to die unto sin,” the catechism likewise acknowledges that we are not passive in our sanctification. The renewed nature of the believer willingly and actively pursues that holiness being wrought by God within us. When it comes to sanctification, there is no contradiction between God’s grace and our duty, and this is the mysterious and wondrous truth that we will now see emerge from our text in Leviticus 20. Chapters 20-22 of Leviticus focus on God’s work of sanctification. Our passage, Leviticus 20:7-8, is the first of seven successive references to the God who sanctifies. These seven verses take this theme and appear to place it in a chiastic structure as seen below.6 The first and last references refer to God sanctifying His people (Lev. 20:8, 22:32). The second, third, fifth and sixth references refer to God sanctifying the priests (Lev. 21:8, 21:15; 22:9, 22:16). The fourth and central reference refers to the sanctity of the altar and sanctuary (Lev. 21:23), thereby centering this theme of God sanctifying His people upon the presence of God Himself. It is a work of God that cannot take place without His presence among His people. The God Who Sanctifies A The people (Lev. 20:8) B The priests (Lev. 21:8, 15) C The Holy Place (Lev. 21:23) B’ The priests (Lev. 22:9, 16) A’ The people (Lev. 22:32) ֲאִ ֥ני ְיהָ ֖וה ְמ ַק ִדּ ְשׁ ֶֽכם In the first of these verses, Leviticus 20:8, God makes the definitive statement q ādaš), which gives a causative) קדשׁ a͗ ̌nǐ YHWH Mĕqaddišĕkem) , using the Piel participle of) sense. The phrase can best be translated “I am the LORD who makes you holy.” The statement is identical in form to the other well-known compound divine names in which the tetragrammaton, YHWH, is joined to a verbal form in order to reveal or display a particular act ,(Y HWH rōpĕ’ekā) , “the LORD who heals you” (Ex. 15:26) ְיהָ ֖וה ֹר ְפ ֶֽא or attribute of God, such as

5 Berkhof, 74. Sproul combines these two senses of holiness with the definition “transcendent purity.” R.C. Sproul, T he Holiness of God (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1998), 39. 6 Jacob Milgrom, L eviticus 17-22, vol. 3A of T he Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 1741.

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Y HWH yirĕ’eh) , “the LORD who provides” (Gen. 22:14). By joining His gracious) ְיהָ ֖וה ֵי ָר ֶֽאה and works to His very name, our God shows that He deserves all the praise and glory for healing us, providing for us—and in Leviticus 20—sanctifying us. It is entirely His work. The Divine Imperative But just before this divine name is announced in verse 8—a name meant to give all glory to God for our sanctification—the LORD says a curious thing in the previous verse. “Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am the LORD your God.” Most English versions translate it this way, “consecrate yourselves,” which blunts the striking repetition of the same Hebrew q ādaš) , but this time in the) קדשׁ verb used in the divine name in verse 8. It is again the verb w ĕhitqaddištem) —which literally means “make) ְו ִ֨ה ְת ַק ִדּ ְשׁ ֶ֔תּם —Hitpael stem, making it reflexive yourselves holy.” So, if we join the beginning of verse 7 with the end of verse 8, we have this striking statement: “Make yourselves holy … I am the LORD who makes you holy.” The same striking juxtaposition appears in that famous statement in Philippians 2:12: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” Thus, Moses and Paul agree that our sanctification is both God’s work and our duty. Theologians have struggled to characterize this relationship. Some have called sanctification a synergistic or cooperative work between the Holy Spirit and the believer, but these characterizations suggest more of a human role than Scripture will admit. God is not at work with us; He is at work within us. It is true that the renewed nature of the believer willingly embraces this work, and actively pursues greater holiness in life, but only in the same way that Lazarus willingly and actively got up from his grave. Jesus commanded him to come out of the tomb, and Lazarus obeyed, but not a single onlooker would have said that he cooperated with Christ. The same can be said of our sanctification. God commands us to sanctify ourselves, to “make ourselves holy,” and that we willingly do. But it is God’s work within us, “both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). Scripture lays before us both God’s grace and our duty in sanctification without a tedious explanation to satisfy those who imagine a contradiction. John Owen said it well when he said, “He that shall deny either that God commands us to be holy in a way of duty, or promiseth to work holiness in us in a way of grace, may with as much modesty reject the whole Bible.”7 ִו ְה ִיי ֶ ֖תם ְק ֹד ִ ֑שׁים –”After the command to “make yourselves holy,” verse 7 goes on to say, “and be holy q ādaš) meets us in the form of an adjective, as part of a) קדשׁ w ihyîtem qĕdōšîm) . Now the verb) command to adopt a state of being or exhibit a conferred status. Here it is helpful to remember the two aspects of holiness that were discussed earlier: first, the state of being separated unto God, which is definitive, and second, the calling to grow in purity, which is progressive. The command to “make yourself holy” clearly applies to this latter aspect of sanctification, envisioning the need to grow in God’s image (and, of course, having much room to grow!). The command to “be holy” is not a needless repetition but calls to mind the definitive separation of God’s people from the world. It is the calling to comprehend the blessing and live within the reality of being separated unto God by His grace. The calling to be holy is based upon God’s declaration that His people are holy. They are definitively separated from the world and unto God, as Moses said in Deuteronomy 7:6, “For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.” Likewise, Paul speaks the same way as he addresses his first letter to the Corinthians this way, “To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified, called to be saints” (1 Cor. 1:2).

7 Owen, 384.

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Remember, to be sanctified means to be holy, and the term “saints” means “holy ones.” So, Paul is writing to those who are called to be holy because they are holy. That is the crux of this commandment here in Leviticus to “be holy.” It means to be what God has declared you to be. In Leviticus 20, in verse 26, God makes this explicit. He says, “And you shall be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine.” He has separated His people from the world; therefore, they are to be separate, or be holy. The holiness that we are speaking about here is the spiritual reality of God’s people being separated from the world and unto Him as His special treasure, also known as “definitive sanctification,” which John Murray defined as “the decisive and irreversible breach with the world and with its defilement and power.”8 In this way, the majestic holiness” of God, which is essentially His transcendent separation from all of creation, is reflected in the definitive sanctification of His people, who are spiritually and decisively separated from the world by God’s grace. With this, we arrive at the essential meaning of that glorious command “be holy for I am holy.” The ethical holiness of God is to be reflected in our progressive sanctification. We have already seen in Leviticus 20:7 that God commands us to “make ourselves holy,” which calls for our active and willing engagement to His work of sanctification in our lives. This envisions a lifelong process of growing more and more in our reflection of the ethical holiness of God, reflecting His moral image, until we perfectly reflect it in glory. Verse 8 of our text lays before us this pathway of progressive sanctification when it says, “And you shall keep my statutes and perform them.” The rest of chapter 20 enumerates many of these statutes about moral and cultic purity. The first and highest purpose of the statutes of God is not to simply give us a list of dos and don’ts, but to reveal His perfect ethical holiness. Then, by keeping those statutes, we come to š āmar) , which means to) שׁמר ,reflect that holiness. Verse 8 uses two verbs in this command ā śāh) , which means to do or to perform. As always, the clustering of‘) עשׂה guard or keep, and verbs in the Hebrew text is not gratuitous repetition, but purposeful precision. We guard the statutes of God as precious entrustments that reveal His holiness, because this is the first use of the law—it reveals God’s perfections. And we perform His statutes in order to positively reflect His holiness in our own lives, because this is the third use of the law. It is a light that illumines the pathway of sanctification. The command to “make yourself Holy” in verse 7 is fleshed out and given its substance in verse 8, where God says, “You shall keep My statutes and perform them.” Again, it is helpful to see the language of definitive and progressive sanctification also reflected in the New Testament. Earlier we heard from 1 Corinthians 1:2 how Paul addressed believers as those who are sanctified by God and set apart as saints. To the same people he wrote in 2 Corinthians 7:1, “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” “Cleanse ourselves” is a phrase that gives a first person echo to the command “make yourselves holy” in Leviticus 20, and “perfecting holiness” envisions the progressive sanctification that imitates the ethical holiness of God. We have seen how the majestic holiness of God is reflected in the definitive sanctification of His people and is captured in the phrase “be holy for I am holy.” We have also seen how the ethical holiness of God is reflected in the progressive sanctification of His people and is captured by the command to “sanctify yourselves.” Finally, we have seen that all the glory for this work belongs .Y HWH Mĕqaddišĕkem) , t he LORD who sanctifies you) ְיהָ ֖ו ה ְמ ַק ִדּ ְשׁ ֶֽכם exclusively to

8 John Murray, T he Collected Writings of John Murray, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1977), 283-4.

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The Divine Sign All of these theological distinctions are important to know, but they pale in comparison to our need to grasp the fact that our sanctification is measured by a standard that is impossible for us to reach, or even fully comprehend—the very holiness and perfection of the triune God Himself. And when we take an honest look at our own lives and see the sin that remains, and how slow our sanctification seems to progress, it is no wonder that John Owen pictured the principle of holiness within us as a mere spark in the midst of the ocean. We might be tempted to despair over such a small spark of holiness within us, and think of our sanctification as a daily process of taking two steps forward and one step back on our way to a destination that is impossible to reach. There is only one thing we can do to live with hope and growing holiness, and that is to cling ֲאִ ֥ני ְיהָ ֖וה ְמ ַק ִדּ ְשׁ ֶֽכם :with all of our lives to the precious promise contained in these three little words (a͗ ̌nǐ YHWH Mĕqaddišĕkem) , “I am the LORD who sanctifies you.” The three Hebrew words take seven English words to translate, which is something of a metaphor for our tendency to complicate and obscure what God has so simply and clearly promised. What we need to do above all is to trust in the LORD who sanctifies us, depend on His character, pray each day that He will continue this work, and give our every effort to reflect His holiness. If He is the LORD who sanctifies us, then He will continue and complete this work to His own satisfaction. If this is God’s work within us, we may wonder why our holiness is only a spark in the ocean rather than a wildfire. God could certainly make us completely holy in a moment if that were His will for us. But take heart, by thinking about the character of all of God’s works, and take for example His work of creation. He could have created all things in a single moment with perfect power and instant efficiency. Instead He chose to make it a process, creating one thing and then another, and taking time to look upon His work, and take pleasure in the process of doing and creating that which is good. This is what Psalm 104 means when it pictures our Creator “rejoicing in His works” (Ps. 104:31). This tells us something important about our holy God. He could affect His will in a moment, but instead He rejoices in His own works, taking pleasure in the process of doing and creating that which is good. In this way, God’s work of sanctification is like His work of creation. It is a divine work that takes place day by day, from evening to morning, just like creation. With each new spark of holiness in our lives, the LORD looks upon His work, sees that it is good, and takes pleasure in what He has done. When evening turns to morning, He takes up His work again in our lives. Finally, when our eternal Sabbath comes, He will pronounce us to be “very good,” and take eternal pleasure in the work of His own hands. This metaphor is fitting for our sanctification because God has given us a sign from creation itself, as a weekly testimony to the fact that He is the LORD who sanctifies us. That sign is the Y HWH) ְיהָ ֖וה ְמ ַק ִדּ ְשׁ ֶֽכם ,Sabbath day. The divine name that we have been discussing Mĕqaddišĕkem), occurs two other times in Scripture besides in Leviticus 20: once in Exodus 31:13 and again in Ezekiel 20:12. In both instances, the Sabbath is mentioned as a sign of this divine name and God’s sanctifying work: “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you” (Ex. 31:13). And again, “Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them” (Ezek. 20:12). Therefore, one of the great purposes of the Sabbath is that we, His people, may know and be reassured that our God is the LORD who sanctifies us. In both verses, the provision of the Sabbath is said to be a sign of God’s sanctification because it is one of the primary means of our sanctification. The LORD has given us one day in seven to

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John Owen: Perseverance and Mortification in the Christian Life Dr. Richard C. Gamble

Professor of Systematic Theology Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Owen on Perseverance (1654) In response to John Goodwin’s 1642 work on justification called Imputatio Fidei, John Owen wrote The Doctrine of the Saints’ Perseverance Explained and Confirmed in 1654. Goodwin, not to be confused with Thomas Goodwin the Westminster Divine, wrongly maintained that God imputed faith to believers for righteousness, rather than imputing Christ’s righteousness to them.1 He also incorrectly believed that Christ died for those who finally perish. Owen began by defining perseverance.2 There is perseverance in any good task against the wearisomeness of the task. Relative to saints, however, perseverance to the end is because of the unchangeableness of the divine decree.3 Thus, perseverance is by grace bestowed upon believers. This grace comes because there is in the believer a principle of new life and a habit of faith.4 In the believer’s salvation, Christ gives the Holy Spirit and all that accompanies salvation, takes their sin upon Himself, and actively imputes His righteousness to them. He takes them into an everlasting covenant, with innumerable promises, that He will be their God and will preserve them to be His people.5 Each day He increases faith, love and holiness in them, strengthens them, and heals their backsliding. In light of those promises and that covenant, God will keep His own in gospel obedience.6

1 John Owen, T he Doctrine of the Saints’ Perseverance Explained and Confirmed, vol. 11, T he Works of John Owen, ed. Goold, (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1862), 2. 2 “Perseverance in this sense being the uninterrupted continuance of habitual grace in the hearts of believers, without intercision, with such a walking in obedience as God, according to the tenor of the new covenant, will accept, upon the whole of the matter it is in its own nature (as everything else is that hath not its being from itself) liable and obnoxious to alteration; and therefore must be built and reposed on that which is in itself immutable, that it may be rendered, on that supposition, immutable also.” Ibid., 21. 3 “The main foundation of that which we plead for is the eternal purpose of God, which his own nature requireth to be absolutely immutable and irreversible. The eternal act of the will of God designing some to salvation by Christ, infallibly to be obtained, for ‘the praise of the glory of his grace,’ is the bottom of the whole, even that foundation which standeth forever, having this seal, ‘The Lord knoweth them that are his’.” Ibid., 22. “The elect of whom he speaks are those on whom, through and for Christ, God bestows the blessedness of justification; elect they are of God antecedent to the obtaining of that blessedness, and through that they do obtain it: so that in that short sentence of this author, the great pillar of the saints’ perseverance, which is their free election, the root of all the blessedness which afterward they enjoy, is established.” Ibid., 28. 4 Ibid., 20-1. 5 Ibid., 22. 6 Ibid., 23.

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Owen demonstrated from Patristic sources that this has been the church’s teaching.7 Ambrose, for example, saw perseverance seated in predestination, in God’s unchanging love, in Christ’s complete redemption, and in His continual intercession.8 Medieval teaching did not break from this pattern.9 The doctrine of perseverance seals God’s mercy and grace to believers in the new covenant based on God’s unchangeableness and faithfulness. The believer needs to know this doctrine—it impacts our walk with God. It causes us to realize that we are those who have been built upon a rock.10 God supplies His children with what they need for this walk—but they must be humble, knowing their frame.11 While there are some who fall away and others who are plagued by doubts, we can do all things through Him who strengthens us. We can have a measure of assurance through our own conscience concerning our walk with God.12 We have confidence that while Adam was in a covenant of works, we are in a covenant of grace which is permanent, and abides forever.13 God has given believers faith that as Christ was raised up, so He will raise us up to new life, and that He has already made us entirely new creatures. We have been changed by the Holy Spirit and this same Spirit now lives within us forever. By that indwelling of the Spirit believers are united to Christ — for it is the same Spirit who dwells in Him the Head who also dwells in believers as members.14 “By all which, as to their actual state and condition,” said Owen, “they are really changed from death to life, from darkness to light, from universal, habitual uncleanness to holiness.”15 Since believers are necessarily united to Christ and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, none can lose the Holy Spirit, nor the new nature given to them.16 God will always be faithful to supply his children with what they need.17 Owen then began a section on indwelling sin that would be very important for a work that he would publish two years later. Indwelling sin is deep within us and by nature, sadly, a familiar friend.18 It touches every part of our lives.19 It has great power in its limbs and brings us into war, making us captive. We have no natural power to incline our hearts to Christ, to do any spiritual good.2 0

7 Owen, P erseverance, 58. 8 Ibid., 59. 9 Ibid., 70. See, for example Thomas Bradwardine (1300-49). 10 Owen explains his method thus: “and therefore I shall as little dabble in the waters of strife, or insist upon it in way of controversy…. One Scripture, in its own plainness and simplicity, will be of more use for the end I aim at than twenty scholastical arguments, pressed with never so much accurateness and subtilty.” Ibid., 78-80. 11 Ibid., 81. 12 Ibid., 84-6. 13 Ibid., 88-9. 14 Ibid., 94-5. 15 Ibid., 95. 16 Ibid., 97. 17 Ibid., 98-9. 18 “It is an enemy born with us, bred up with us, carried about in our bosoms, by nature our familiar friend, our guide and counsellor, dear to us as our right eye, useful as our right hand, our wisdom, strength, etc.” Ibid., 105. 19 “It is perverseness, stubbornness, obstinancy in the will, that carries it with violence to disobedience and sin; it is sensuality upon the a ffection, bending them to the things of the world, alienating them from God; it is slipperiness in the m emory, making us like leaking vessels, so that things that we hear of the gospel do suddenly slip out …; it is senselessness and error in the c onscience, staving it off from the performance of that duty which, in the name and authority of God, it is to accomplish: and in these is daily enticing and seducing the heart to folly, conceiving and bringing forth sin.” Owen, P erseverance, 106. 20 Ibid., 107-12.

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Despite indwelling sin, saints presently enjoy spiritual glory from two vantage points. Extrinsic to us is God’s favor and free acceptance in Christ. Intrinsic to us is our sanctification, the fruit of love, faith, and obedience unto him.2 1 Add to these two realities the knowledge that these benefits cannot be broken, and we have the mercy of the covenant of grace. Thus, while believers can fall into deep and many sins, they cannot fall from the state of regeneration. We cannot move from being a child of God to a child of the devil. This is an important characteristic of the covenant of grace.2 2 Owen made four arguments for why believers persevere. The first argument is from the immutability of the divine nature. God’s nature does not change. He cannot and will not change His love toward those whom He has graciously accepted.2 3 We have been truly changed in our regeneration. We were dead in our sins but are now alive in Christ. Our continuation depends on God’s irrevocable grace—not on us.2 4 That grace is based on God’s character, His power, and His unchangeableness.2 5 T he second argument is based on the immutability of God’s purposes. Those who are effectually called are necessarily saved, and those who remain in wickedness were never called.2 6 The third argument is from the covenant of grace. God promises to be their God forever.2 7 All the conditions of the covenant are met by God, not by men.2 8 The fourth argument is from God’s promises. God’s gospel promises are those demonstrations of His love to sinners through Christ in the covenant of grace wherein he promises to be their God.2 9 Christ atones for them, and the Holy Spirit abides in them and provides all things necessary to bring them to enjoy Him.30 The promises of perseverance are of two kinds: God’s continuing favor toward us (justification), and our continuing obedience to God (sanctification). Again, these promises are not dependent on us, but on Him.31 Notice the nature of God’s promises. While we are afflicted, we are never cast off, because God has covenanted with us.32 Because of God’s faithfulness to us, our souls are moved to continue with Him in love and obedience. While it is true that obedience is required of us, yet in the

21 Ibid., 117-8. 22 Ibid., 118-9. 23 Ibid., 120-3. 24 Ibid., 124-5. 25 Ibid., 126-7. 26 Ibid., 174. 27 Ibid., 207. 28 Ibid., 210-7. 29 “Now, that he may thus be our God, two things are required: That all breaches and differences between him and us be removed, perfect peace and agreement made, and we rendered acceptable and well-pleasing in his sight. These are the terms whereon they stand to whom he is a God in covenant.” And secondly, “That we may be kept and preserved meet for communion with him as ou r God, and for the enjoyment of him as our reward. For this end flows forth the other great stream from the former fountain … the promise of the Holy Spirit; which he gives us … and to work in us the obedience which he requires and accepts of us in Jesus Christ, so preserving us for himself.” Ibid., 232. 30 Ibid., 227. 31 Ibid., 235-8. 32 Ibid., 252-61.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7 .1 (Fall 2020) covenant of grace God has promised to work those things which He requires.33 Perseverance becomes a habitual willing, not a compulsion, so that we voluntarily abide with Him.34 The focus of perseverance is on Christ’s work.35 Christ has paid the debt of sin in full, thus there is no condemnation. The vindictive justice of God has nothing to charge us with. Moreover, Christ’s work cannot be separated from His procuring the Holy Spirit for us, who sets us free from the power of sin so that it no longer reigns in us.36 We must view ourselves as having died in Him, as being raised with Him, and as having entered His holy place.37 This summarizes our union with Christ.38 The ruling of original sin, also known as the old man, is crucified and destroyed. Sin no longer has dominion over us.39 In the final and most important section of his analysis, Owen says that the believer’s mystical union with Christ is the Holy Spirit’s personally dwelling in us—which is the great promise of the covenant of grace.4 0 He outlines the nature of this great mystical union and explores a host of biblical illustrations.4 1 He then outlines how the Spirit guides and directs believers in the way that they ought to walk. Externally and morally, the word of God lays out the way for life. Internally and efficiently, the Holy Spirit directs believers, leads them, and carries them along this path.4 2 The Spirit leads us to understand and embrace biblical truth, and supports and strengthens us.4 3

33 Owen, P erseverance, 261-70. Addressing what will later plague the church in the Marrow controversy, Owen said: “Now, that God should require their repentance as an antecedaneous, previous qualification to his receiving them into covenant, and yet in the covenant undertake to give them that repentance, as he doth in promising them to take away their hearts of stone and give them new hearts of flesh, is a direct contradiction, fit only for a part of that divinity which is in the whole an express contradiction to the work and mind of God.” Ibid., 275. 34 Ibid., 285. 35 Ibid., 290-6. 36 “This consideration of the death of Christ, of his freeing us from condemnation for any or all of our sins, is not to be taken apart or separated from the other, of h is procuring the Holy Spirit and grace for us, that we should not commit sin, being born of God, with all the dispensations of precepts and promises, exhortations and threatenings, whereby he morally carries on the work of his grace in the hearts of his saints. Setting us free from the guilt of sin, he so far also sets us free from the power of sin that we should be dead to it, live no longer in it, that it should not r eign in us, nor prevail to turn us utterly from God.” Ibid., 297. 37 Ibid., 299. 38 “The first signal issue and effect which is ascribed to this indwelling of the Spirit is union…. But it is a spiritual union, —the great union mentioned so often in the gospel, that is the sole fountain of our blessedness,—our union with the Lord Christ, which we have thereby.” Ibid., 336. “I say, then, this is that which gives us union with Christ, and that wherein it consists, even that the one and self-same Spirit dwells in him and us.” Ibid., 337. “Our participation, then, of the divine nature being our union with Christ, consists in the dwelling of the same Spirit in him and in us, we receiving him by the promise for that end.” Ibid., 338. “It is by the indwelling of the quickening Spirit, whereby we have a real participation of Christ, whereby he dwelleth in us and we in him.” Ibid. “Both he and they are partakers of the same fruit-bearing Spirit; he that dwells in them dwells in him also: only, it is in him, as to them, originally; in them by communication from him.” Ibid., 341. 39 Ibid., 307. 40 M ystical indwelling is different from his essential filling of all things and his energetical operation of all things. Ibid., 330. Also, the Spirit’s power is stronger in some than in others and at times gives more strength or less to the same person. Ibid., 336. 41 Ibid., 338-40. 42 Ibid., 342. 43 Ibid., 344-7. “To be patient under tribulation is no small victory; to glory in it a most eminent triumph, a conformity to Christ, who in his cross triumphed over all his opposers.” Ibid., 348.

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Very importantly, the Holy Spirit also restrains us. There are times when we fail in our duties, are inclined toward evil, and turn from the Spirit’s guidance. There is an innate wildness in us that provokes us to run away from God. But then we stop dead in our tracks. Have you experienced this grace? This saving restraint is from the indwelling Holy Spirit who daily renews God’s people in sanctifying grace.4 4 Owen on Mortification (1656) Owen’s next work, and the final one we will examine, is The Mortification of Sin. This book was published in 1656, two years after Perseverance, when Owen was dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. Owen opens with a warning that when mortification proceeds from a self-strength that has the goal of self-righteousness, then it is the epitome of all the false religion in the world.4 5 He then jumps to the topic of indwelling sin. Believers have indwelling sin, which must be put to death. To put indwelling sin to death means that its power and strength must be taken away by the Holy Spirit. It is Christ’s cross, by both merit and example, that kills indwelling sin, but that work is carried out by degrees throughout all the days of our life.4 6 This mortification is a constant duty even for the most sanctified believer—to keep indwelling sin from having the life and power to produce the works of the flesh.4 7 As believers mortify the flesh, there is an increase in the power and comfort of their spiritual life. Owen has a wonderful expression: “be killing sin or it will be killing you.”4 8 Even though we have died and are alive in Christ there is no excuse from this vitally important work. It cannot be half-hearted, and it must be constant.4 9 If we permit sin any space, we will be conquered, because sin always strives for the utmost. Both the Spirit and the new nature are given to us to oppose sin. This is a contest for our lives and souls.5 0 Mortification is a gift of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit causes our hearts to yearn for fruit that is contrary to the flesh. He is a fire which burns up the roots of our deep seated lust. He gives us communion with Christ in His death, and fellowship with Him in His sufferings. It is His work, but it is still an act of our obedience.5 1 As a doctor of our souls, Owen says that there are two basic problems in the Christian life. On the one hand, we lack the power to walk obediently with God. On the other hand, we lack peace

44 Owen, P erseverance, 348-50. 45 John Owen, O f T he Mortification of Sin in Believers, vol. 6, T he Works of John Owen, ed. Goold, (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965), 47. “Such outside endeavours, such bodily exercises, such self-performances, such merely legal duties, without the least mention of Christ or his Spirit, are varnished over with swelling words of vanity for the only means and expedients for the mortification of sin, as discover a deep-rooted unacquaintedness with the power of God and mystery of the gospel. The consideration hereof was one motive to the publishing of this plain discourse.” Ibid., 48. 46 Ibid., 48. 47 Ibid., 49-50. 48 Ibid., 50. 49 “Sin does not only still abide in us, but is still acting, still laboring to bring forth the deeds of the flesh. When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone; but as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep when they are still, so ought our contrivances against it to be vigorous at all times and in all conditions, even where there is least suspicion.” Ibid., 51. 50 Ibid., 54. “Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walk not over the bellies of his lusts.” Ibid., 55. 51 Ibid., 61-2.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7 .1 (Fall 2020) and comfort in our Christian life. The reason for both problems is that sin weakens and darkens the soul and hinders our sense of duty.5 2 In contrast, mortification prunes the vine planted by divine grace and makes room for the tender branches to grow. The purpose of mortification is to root out, kill, and destroy sin so that it can have no more residence in our hearts. Nevertheless, total mortification is a goal that is sadly never accomplished in this life.5 3 Mortification is not a natural disposition. It is not that the naturally quiet man has more mortification than the angry, nor does changing from one sin to another mean that you have mortified any sin.5 4 Owen spells it out another way. Mortification is the weakening of habitual sins so that they do not flare up.5 5 To accomplish this, we must recognize that sin is a dread enemy which must be destroyed. We need to pay attention to sin—even when things seem to be going well and sin is not overtly seducing us. We need to study sin’s subtleties within us, where its strengths lie, what gives it opportunities, and what are its reasonings, strategies, and excuses. Mortification is to always be ready to fight sin by apprehending it, taking it to God’s law and Christ’s love, condemning it, and then executing it.5 6 In addition, we can also ask God for the counter spiritual gifts that offset sins; for example, to plead for heavenly-mindedness in contrast to the love of this world.5 7 Mortification will not occur without both sincerity and diligence. If we are negligent in the areas where we are not presently struggling then there will be no relief in the area where we are doing battle. When we have a deep-seated particular lust it is commonly because we are generally negligent regarding all of our sins. There are two keys to true spiritual mortification. The first is to hate our sin simply because it is sin, and the second is to love Christ’s cross.5 8 Owen vividly describes how our own sin fights against us. There are some dangerous marks of indwelling sin which we must look out for. Some of these marks are hardened within us, habitual, and deeply rooted. First, our heart pleads with us to countenance our sin. Second, God at times rebukes us for our sin, but then instead of running to Christ’s blood for pardon we look for some way to throw off and escape God’s yoke. A third dangerous symptom is frequently falling to sin’s seduction. A lust that has withstood God’s dealings against it in the past is particularly dangerous.5 9 There are a number of antidotes to these rotten patterns. We need to get a clear and abiding sense upon our mind and conscience of the guilt, danger, and evil of our sin. There is danger of being hardened by sin’s deceitfulness—when neither sermon nor sickness will make us tender. An unmortified lust harms our soul. Moreover, we grieve God when we harbor His enemies in our hearts. Jesus’ love for us is hampered and His adversary is gratified. We are of less value to Him in the church and kingdom. In opposition to the struggle with sin is peace with God. This is the sum of the promises of the covenant of grace. This is our soul’s life. We yearn to be at peace in His presence.6 0 We need to meditate much, cause our hearts to dwell on, engage our thoughts, and give deep consideration

52 Owen, M ortification, 64. 53 Ibid., 69. 54 Ibid., 71. 55 Ibid., 73-4. 56 Ibid., 77. 57 Ibid., 83. Of course, mortification can only be accomplished by a believer. 58 Ibid., 86-8. 59 Ibid., 90-5. 60 Ibid., 98-102.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7 .1 (Fall 2020) to the danger of evil. When we do that, then our soul is influenced, and it will tremble in fear of sin.6 1 Owen also wants us to load our conscience with the guilt of sin. To do this we must deeply meditate on God’s holy law.6 2 Think of our sin, then think of the law and its purity and ask our gracious God that we might be changed. Drag our lusts to the gospel—not for relief, but for further conviction. Think about Christ on the cross and weep with bitterness.6 3 Then, reflect on God’s patience toward you so many times in the past. You have sinned and sinned and he keeps on forgiving you. Given his deep mercy, do not be content with your present spiritual condition. There is no place in our lives for anything but humility.6 4 We are naturally disposed to embrace our indwelling sin so that without watchfulness, that sin will prevail.6 5 He further advises us to exercise ourselves to such meditations as may serve to fill us at all times with self-abasement and thoughts of our own vileness. This is where using a later theological term called the Creator/creature distinction comes into play. God is infinitely high and holy, and we are far distant from Him. Owen rightly says that we cannot bear the brilliant rays of His glorious being. We must remain in awe of His majesty. No matter how advanced we are in piety, we know little of Him and have almost no familiar communion with Him.6 6 If we have trouble with the weak rays of the sun, how much more the beams of his infinite brightness? Even though God has revealed Himself to us and has given us ways to speak about Him, yet we do not know Him as He is. How can we comprehend the Trinity, “the subsistence of distinct persons in the same individual essence” which is altogether mysterious? We only know Him by what He has done for us, rather than by who He is—by His external works, rather than by His essential goodness. What we know of Him, we know by faith.6 7 On the other hand, while some unbelievers may have greater theological knowledge than do believers, unbelievers do not know God as they ought. They have no true communion with Him. True believers know God in their hearts as a Father in an intimate covenantal relationship, as a Father who rewards His children. Thus, because we are loved by a powerful and gracious Father, we want to obey Him.6 8 Nevertheless, it is our nature as creatures not to be able to bear the weight of apprehending his essential glory.6 9 As members of His family He gives good gifts to His children. When we are wounded by our sin, when we are ashamed of the things that we have done that alienate ourselves from Him, then we look to Him and to His covenantal promises, and our hearts are gently quieted. Considering those promises is the salve that cures the wounds of sin.7 0 It is Christ who, by faith, will kill your sin. “His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this,” Owen pleads, “and you will die a conqueror; yea, you will, through the good

61 Owen, M ortification, 103. 62 While Owen does not mention it, a great practice is to read through the Westminster Larger Catechism Questions 100 to 148 on the Ten Commandments. 63 Owen, M ortification, 103-4. 64 Ibid., 105-6. 65 Ibid., 107-9. 66 Ibid., 110-1. 67 Ibid., 112-5. 68 “Jesus Christ by his word and Spirit reveals to the hearts of all his, God as a Father, as a God in covenant, as a rewarder, every way sufficiently to teach us to obey him here…. notwithstanding all this, it is but a little portion we know of him; we see but his back parts.” Ibid., 117. 69 Ibid., 118. 70 Ibid., 119-22.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7 .1 (Fall 2020) providence of God, live to see your lust dead at your feet.”7 1 With the eyes of faith we contemplate what Christ has done to mortify our lusts. By faith we expect relief from Christ. We ourselves cannot mortify our own sin because mortification only comes by His grace—but He is always tender, kind, and merciful.7 2 He has promised us relief, He died to destroy the devil’s work, and He always fulfills His word. He also provided the means of that relief, in His ordinances of prayer, worship, and the sacraments.7 3 It is crucial to understand what the New Testament means when it says that we are crucified with Christ. Through Christ’s crucifixion and subsequent resurrection He procured the Holy Spirit for us to mortify sin. In His own deep suffering and crucifixion He was the perfect example of a mortified life.7 4 “Look on him under the weight of our sins, praying, bleeding, dying,” Owen pleads. “Bring him in that condition into your heart by faith; apply his blood so shed to your corruptions. Do this daily.”7 5 As Owen drew his great work to a conclusion he reminded his readers that mortification is exclusively the work of the Holy Spirit. Only the Spirit convinces our hearts of the evils of sin and lust. We cannot do it by our own rational considerations. While Owen did not use this example, any one of us may go on a diet or resolve to exercise more—but we cannot convince ourselves of the deep evils of our sin. It is the Spirit who convinces the soul of the evil of lust, and “cuts off all its pleas, discovers all its deceits, stops all its evasions, answers its pretenses, makes the soul own its abominations and lie down under the sense of it.”7 6 It is the Spirit alone who brings Christ’s cross into our hearts with its sin-killing power and it is the precious Holy Spirit who is the great Author and Finisher of our sanctification.7 7

71 Owen, M ortification, 131. 72 Ibid., 133-4. 73 Ibid., 135-6. 74 “We are crucified with him meritoriously, in that he procured the Spirit for us to mortify sin; efficiently, in that from his death virtue comes forth for our crucifying; in the way of a representation and exemplar we shall assuredly be crucified unto sin, as he was for our sin.” Ibid., 137. 75 Ibid., 138. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid., 139.

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Warfield on Sanctification and Eschatology Dr. Jeffrey A. Stivason

Professor of New Testament Studies Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

The warm friendship between Benjamin B. Warfield and Geerhardus Vos is often referenced and thought of affectionately by admirers of the Princeton tradition. Princeton scholar David Calhoun reminds us of their walks up and down Mercer St.1 Marianne Vos remembered those walks. She said that her father was usually swinging a cane in one hand while one of the family dogs followed at his footsteps.2 These men and their families shared a mutual love for one another. Once, when Marianne wanted to dress up for her birthday, Anne Warfield loaned her a beautiful shawl for the occasion.3

At faculty meetings, Warfield was the vocal leader and Vos was the silent supporter. The two men were rarely on opposite sides of an issue.4 But their mutual admiration went beyond faculty curriculum and administration. Warfield once wrote to Louis Berkhof and said of his friend Vos, “He was probably the best exegete Princeton ever had.”5 This statement provides the perspective of genuine admiration, for Warfield was rarely, if ever, given to flattery. For example, in the eulogy of his beloved professor Charles Hodge he said, after some very positive remarks, “He had, however, no taste for the technicalities of exegesis…. His discussion of disputed grammatical or lexical points had a flavor of second handedness about them.”6 And yet, it is no secret as to how much Warfield loved his old professor.

Those of us given to imagination ponder what those walks up and down Mercer St. might have entailed. Did they discuss Anne’s worsening health? Perhaps Vos caught up Warfield regarding faculty meetings which he refused to attend once President Stevenson showed himself to be as incompetent as Warfield originally thought him to be. Maybe they discussed their students, Vos’s dogs, or the poetry both men were fond of writing. And we would hope that they discussed theology. But no records remain and we are left to our imagination.

However, the topic of sanctification does provide us with a window into an area of disagreement which they might have had with one another as they traversed the streets of Princeton. Both Princetonians believed that sanctification is God setting His people apart from the world to be devoted to Him. However, when we add the theological category of eschatology, things become

1 David B. Calhoun, P rinceton Seminary: The Majestic Testimony 1869-1929 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1996), 210. 2 Danny Olinger, G eerhardus Vos: Reformed and Biblical Theologian (Philadelphia, PA: Reformed Forum, 2018), 121-2. 3 Ibid., 121. 4 Ibid., 83. 5 Ibid., 283. 6 Benjamin B. Warfield, S elected Shorter Writings, ed. John E. Meeter (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2003), 1:438.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7 .1 (Fall 2020) interesting, and we discover fissures of disagreement that range from the interesting to the significant.

Perhaps it would be best to briefly sketch what is meant by the term eschatology. Vos states what Warfield would echo: “Etymologically, the term eschatology (eschatos logos) means ‘a doctrine of last things.’”7 An examination of Warfield’s writings on the topic of eschatology demonstrates that this was his primary way of understanding the term, whether corporately or personally. Even when commenting on the eschatology of salvation, Warfield had in mind “the pathway that leads to the eschatological goal of salvation.”8 What is more, it is no secret or surprise that Warfield’s eschatology was of a postmillennial sort, while Vos was amillennial.

But Vos employed the term eschatology as a theological and hermeneutical category in a way different from what we find in the writings of Warfield. For instance, when Vos speaks or writes of eschatology, he is not simply talking about the last chapter in a systematic theology textbook. In fact, he argues against such an exclusive understanding of the term. Vos contends, “It is not biblical to hold that eschatology is a sort of appendix to soteriology, a consummation of the saving work of God.”9 However, adds Vos, neither is eschatology bound up with soteriology.10 In fact, “Eschatology is older than soteriology.”11 For Vos, there is a whole chapter written on “Eschatology in Its Pre-Redemptive Stage” before there was such a thing as original sin.12 Thus, Vos might say that eschatology is best described as ultimate things brought forward.13

Intriguingly, when Vos informed Herman Bavinck of his intention to accept Princeton’s invitation to take up the chair of biblical theology, Vos previewed many of the themes that he would emphasize once he had taken up his post as professor. He spoke of biblical theology as the history of special revelation, of biblical theology’s right to its own method, of its organic and covenantal character, as well as other meaningful points. However, what Vos did not mention in those early days was the category of eschatology.14 Nevertheless, no other category would become more central to the thought of Vos while serving as Princeton’s Professor of Biblical Theology.

Consequently, this paper will not only articulate the main lines of Warfield’s doctrine of sanctification, it will also explore his doctrine in contrast to those who, like his Princeton colleague Geerhardus Vos, employ the category of eschatology as an organizing feature of soteriology. Therefore, we will begin by articulating the aim of sanctification in Warfield’s theology as compared to others who contend for an eschatological framework. Then, we will look at the mechanics of Warfield’s doctrine of sanctification and compare his thought with that of Vos.

7 Geerhardus Vos, T he Eschatology of the Old Testament (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2001), 1. 8 Benjamin B. Warfield, F aith and Life, (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1974), 300. 9 Vos, T he Eschatology of the Old Testament, 73. 10 Ibid., 73. 11 Ibid., 77. 12 Ibid., 73. 13 Ibid., 42. 14 Olinger, 77.

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The (Main) Aim of Sanctification

Defining Our Terms

Surely Warfield and Vos would have agreed that sanctification is a vital aspect of the ordo salutis whereby the regenerate and justified sinner grows and develops in his newfound faith. However, the difference between these two stalwarts can be detected at the definitional level. Consider Warfield’s encyclopedic definition of sanctification, found in an article originally written by A. A. Hodge but revised by Warfield in 1896. He writes, “Sanctification … is the work of God’s grace by which those who believe in Christ are freed from sin and built up in holiness.”15 Now, consider Vos’s definition, where he states that sanctification is “the gracious work of God whereby, under the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit, the justified believer is renewed by degrees in his whole nature, so that Christ is formed in him and he lives for God in good works.”16

There are obvious similarities. There are obvious differences. Perhaps the most distinctive of the differences has to do with how Christ is brought to our attention. For example, Warfield cites belief in Christ as the inaugural fruit of regeneration which frees a person to embark on the path of holiness, whereas Vos speaks not about belief in Christ but of Christ being formed in the believer.

Now, someone may contend that the combatants offered those definitions without thought to this particular debate. Others might contend that Warfield’s definition could not really be said to be Warfield’s, though he did have the right of revision. We have never known the fighting Kentuckian to be shy with his revisions, even when simply reviewing another’s book! And still others might say that Vos’s definition comes from his earlier volume, Reformed Dogmatics, and does not represent his mature view on the matter. However, the theology of these men bears out the distinction of these definitions.

Herman Bavinck helps us to understand eschatology from the framework with which Vos would most likely agree—that is, through a Christological lens. Bavinck writes, “Creation itself already must be conceived in infralapsarian fashion, and Adam was already a type of Christ…. In the act of creation, God already had Christ in mind. In that sense creation itself already served as preparation for the incarnation.”17 Notice how pre-lapsarian creation reaches ahead to the Messiah for whom and by whom it was prepared.

Yet, even as pre-lapsarian creation reached forward to its ultimate Messianic fulfillment, the thought of believers must move “backwards from the anticipated attainments in its fullness to the present partial experiences” and interpret “these in terms of the former.”18 In other words, the aim of sanctification is the Christ who is the telos of all creation.

Warfield’s Understanding of the Aim

Warfield, on the other hand, had a different structure in mind. According to Warfield, special revelation is both necessary and sufficient for salvation in a post-lapsarian world. It was added

15 Warfield, S elected Shorter Writings, 2:325. 16 Geerhardus Vos, R eformed Dogmatics, R . B. Gaffin Jr., Ed. & Trans. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012–2016), 4:191. 17 Herman Bavinck, R eformed Dogmatics: Sin and Salvation in Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006), 3 :278. 18 Geerhardus Vos, T he Pauline Eschatology, (Carlisle, PA: P&R Publishing, 1979), 43.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7 .1 (Fall 2020) according to man’s need. Warfield says that “[were] there no ‘special revelation’ there would be no Christianity.”19 According to Warfield’s understanding, special revelation concerns soteriology, and thus the terms “general” and “special” revelation ought to be changed to “cosmical” and “soteriological” revelation in order to more properly reflect the “real distinction” between the two.2 0 This simply highlights Warfield’s distinction between the natural mode of general revelation and supernatural mode of special revelation. The natural is not sufficient for man’s soteric needs.

Thus, the sufficiency of special revelation rests in the fact that it alone can provide fallen man with the knowledge needed to be reconciled to God. For Warfield, special revelation is supplemental in that it provides man with new provisions for salvation accommodated to his blindness, helplessness, and guilt induced by sin.2 1

Nevertheless, despite special revelation’s supplemental character, Warfield describes the two stages of revelation as constituting “together a unitary whole.”2 2 Warfield describes the relationship using Kantian phraseology. Without special revelation, general revelation would be incomplete and ineffective. In turn, without general revelation, special revelation would lack the basis for a fundamental knowledge of God.2 3 This construction raises an important question. What is the object of revelation?

The Object of Revelation

What is the object of this unitary whole? What object do the rays of general and special revelation illuminate? Warfield grounds his answer to that question in creation. Having post-lapsarian general revelation in view, with an eye to pre-lapsarian humanity, he writes, “In its most general idea, revelation is rooted in creation.… Its object is to realize the end of man’s creation, to be attained only through knowledge of God and perfect unbroken communion with Him.”2 4 According to this statement, the object of revelation is “the end of man’s creation.” The question begging to be asked is what is the end of man’s creation? Warfield goes on to tell us that this end is to be attained “only through knowledge of God and perfect unbroken communion with Him.” He does not tell us what that end is, at least not in his encyclopedia article “Revelation.”

However, in a sermon on Hebrews 2:6-9 titled, “The Revelation of Man,” published in 1903, Warfield is clear about the object of revelation. He writes, “The text fully justifies us in looking upon Christ as the revelation of man.”2 5 Later Warfield says,

19 Warfield, S elected Shorter W ritings, 1:25. Cf. I nspiration and Authority of the Bible, where Warfield contends in the face of criticism to the contrary that “without any inspiration we could have had Christianity; yea, and men could still have heard the truth and through it been awakened, and justified, and sanctified, and glorified.” Benjamin B. Warfield, T he Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, (Carlisle, PA: P&R Publishing, 1964), 210-1. 20 Warfield, S elected Shorter Writings, 1:24. 21 Warfield, T he Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, 74. 22 Ibid., 75. 23 Ibid. Geerhardus Vos put the relationship like this, “To apply the Kantian phraseology to a higher subject, without God’s acts the words would be empty, without God’s words the acts would be blind.” Cf. Geerhardus Vos R edemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 1980), 10. 24 Warfield, T he Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, 75. 25 Benjamin B. Warfield, T he Power of God Unto Salvation (Vestavia Hills, AL: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2004), 6.

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God has expressly subjected all things to man; man has obviously not entered into his dominion; but the man Jesus has. Therefore it is to Him that we are to look if we would see man as man, man in the possession and use of all those faculties, powers, dignities for which he was destined by his Creator. In this way the author of this epistle presents Jesus before us as the pattern, the ideal, the realization of man. Looking upon Him, we have man revealed to us.2 6

Warfield is quick to warn us against taking an eschatological perspective on revelation simply because Christ is the revelation of man.2 7 According to Warfield, “He is not the representative man in the sense that in Him the age-long process of man’s creation was first completed—that His exalted humanity is the goal toward which nature had been all through the aeons travailing, till now at last in Him the man-child comes to a tardy birth.”2 8

For Warfield, to view the object of revelation in eschatological and Christological terms would be to miss the point. Instead, said Warfield,

He is the revelation of man only in the sense that when we turn our eyes toward Him, we see in the quality of His humanity God’s ideal of man, the Creator’s intention for His creature; while by contrast with Him we may learn the degradation of our sin; and happily also we may see in Him what man is to be, through the redemption of the Son of God and the sanctification of the Spirit.2 9

Therefore, rather than an eschatological objective found in Christ, the object of revelation is rooted in God’s creation of man. The Lord Jesus, by virtue of the incarnation, takes us back to what man was supposed to be, had he successfully emerged from his time of testing.

But let us spend some time with this point and explore Warfield even further. After encouraging us to look to Christ in whom “we have man revealed to us,” Warfield develops his thought concerning what exactly Jesus was as incarnate man. Preaching to the faculty and student body of Princeton, he said, “I beg you to keep fully in mind that our Lord’s adaption to reveal to us what man is, is based by the author of this epistle solely on the perfection of His identification with us in His incarnation.”30

It is what Warfield says next that is most telling. The Princeton theologian calls our attention to the difference between the way in which Psalm 8 is applied to men and to Christ. According to Warfield, that man was made a little lower than the angels “marks the height of his exaltation,” whereas, for our Lord, the same text “marks the depth of His humiliation.”31 Christ, says Warfield, “stoops to reach the exalted heights of man’s as yet unattained glory.”32 Yet, in this infinite condescension Christ reveals to us “what man is.”33

26 Warfield, T he Power of God Unto Salvation, 9. 27 At this point, it might be best to contrast Warfield with the eschatological perspective of Herman Bavinck who argues in volume 3 of his R eformed Dogmatics that “ Creation itself already must be conceived in infralapsarian fashion, and Adam was already a type of Christ…. In the act of creation, God already had Christ in mind. In that sense creation itself already served as preparation for the incarnation.” Herman Bavinck, R eformed Dogmatics, v ol. 3, S in and Salvation in Christ, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic Books, 2006), 278. 28 Warfield, T he Power of God Unto Salvation, 12. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid., 9. 31 Ibid., 10. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid., 9.

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Thus, for Warfield, Christ “is not the representative of man in the sense that in Him the age-long process of man’s creation was first completed,” or the goal toward which nature has been moving.34 Man was not created incomplete and needed to see the complete product displayed in Christ. Rather, in the quality of Christ’s humanity, which is genuine humanity, we see God’s original intention and ideal for man. In other words, for Warfield, Christ reveals the glory which Adam could have achieved through obedience to God’s will in the Covenant of Works. We might put it like this: Christ descended to a place lower than the angels so that man could observe the place from which he had fallen. Therefore, the incarnation presents a successful post-probation glorified man. Thus, says Warfield, “The man Jesus stands before us as the revelation of man’s native dignity, capacities, and powers. He exhibits to us what man is in the idea of his Maker.”35 If we would know “what man is, in the height of His divine idea, look at Jesus,” says Warfield, for in the “perfection of Christ’s manhood we have the revelation of what man may become by redemption of the Son of God.”36

Therefore, we might summarize the difference in this way. The aim of sanctification for Vos is the eschatological, whereas for Warfield it was creational, or at least what man was originally intended to be, had he stretched to his full pre-lapsarian height and stature. Clearly, there is a difference in terms of aim. However, does that difference extend to the mechanics of sanctification?

The Mechanics of Sanctification

On February 23r d, 1892, Princeton issued a formal call to Vos inviting him to accept its new chair in biblical theology.37 It was Old Testament professor William Henry Green who initially reached out to Vos and then followed up the invitation with three consecutive letters urging him to accept the offer.38 Green urged Vos to think about the “present theological crisis and the position which Princeton holds before the church.”39 He even addressed Vos’s future directly saying, “This may be the turning point of your whole life, on which your entire future may hinge, and the service you can render to the cause of Christ.”4 0

On March 11t h, the Curatorium at the Theological School in Grand Rapids where Vos taught theology called an emergency meeting. They wanted to make it clear that they were willing to do all in their power to retain Vos. Jan Vos was a member of the Curatorium and wanted his son to remain not only at the school but also in Grand Rapids. On March 18t h, Vos wrote a letter to Warfield informing him that he had to turn down Princeton’s offer. However, he also hoped that his decision would not be a disappointment to Warfield to the extent that Vos might lose Warfield’s brotherly love and counsel.4 1

Quite clearly Vos did not lose that brotherly love he valued so highly in Warfield, for once they did move to Princeton the two established the aforementioned daily routine when school was in session which they would continue for nearly thirty years.4 2 They were seen walking up and

34 Warfield, T he Power of God Unto Salvation, 12. 35 Ibid., 15. 36 Ibid., 20. 37 Olinger, 61. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., 62. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., 63. 42 Ibid., 83.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7 .1 (Fall 2020) down Mercer Street and talking as they went, often with a dog in tow. It is important to note this relationship before addressing this next point.

For Warfield and Vos, the soteriological structure of our sanctification rests upon two different models. Or perhaps we might say that the structures are constructed upon two different hermeneutical categories. What is more, these categories are clearly put on display in two different articles wherein both men comment on Romans 1:3-4. Using this passage we can discern the difference in emphasis between Warfield and Vos and apply that understanding to their soteriological views. For Warfield, the emphasis must be upon the logical or systematic understanding of the text, whereas for Vos, the emphasis must fall on the eschatological.

To provide a better understanding of the intersection between these two articles it might be helpful to briefly explore some of the historical background. In 1912 Vos published an article titled, “Paul’s Eschatological Concept of the Spirit,” in a volume titled Biblical and Theological Studies. The volume was published to commemorate the one hundredth year anniversary of the founding of the seminary. The article proposes to investigate “to what extent Paul’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit shows interdependence with his eschatology.”4 3 After drawing up several lines of thought, Vos proposes to examine the “[biblical] statements which introduce the Spirit in a strictly eschatological capacity, as connected with the future state.”4 4 This is followed by a second query wherein Vos inquires “to what extent eschatological side-lights fall on the resurrection and the resurrection life of Christ.” Here he takes up Romans 1:3-4.

Vos argues that verse 3 stands in close parallel with verse 4. In fact, key words in each verse correspond to one another to make a redemptive-historical point. The key words in each verse are as follows: “descended” (γ ενομένου) , “according to the flesh” (κ ατὰ σάρκα) and “from the seed of David” (ἐ κ σπέρματος Δαυὶδ) in verse 3 are to seen in parallel with “declared” (ὁ ρισθέντος) , “according to the Spirit of holiness” (κ ατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης) and “from the resurrection of the dead” (ἐ ξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν) in verse 4.

At the outset, Vos declares that these references are “not to two coexisting sides in the constitution of the Savior.”4 5 By that he means the hypostatic union of the two natures in the person of Christ. Rather, these two prepositional phrases represent the two successive stages of the life of our Lord.4 6 Vos argues that the phrases move from origin to mode in order to throw the weight of emphasis on the result rather than the initial act. Jesus derived his sonship, according to the flesh, from the seed of David, but the beginning of a new status of sonship is derived from the resurrection.4 7

For Vos, what may not be explicitly stated in the text stood before the mind of the Apostle as he set these two phrases in parallel. These two phrases contrasted the two ages. Thus, says Vos, “Paul is not thinking of the resurrection of Christ as an event, but of what happened to Christ in its generic qualitative capacity, as an epoch partaking of a strictly eschatological nature.”4 8 Thus, the category that is not stated in the text but clearly assumed by the Apostle Paul is the eschatological. Strikingly, the resurrection mentioned in the text is interpreted eschatologically to mean not the actual event but the partaking of the epochal achievement of bringing that

43 Vos, Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, 94. 44 Ibid., 101. 45 Ibid., 104. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid., 105.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7 .1 (Fall 2020) which is ultimate to bear upon the present. To put it simply, these two phrases provide a shorthand summary of the gospel emerging from the eschatological.

Curiously, in 1918 Warfield wrote an article for The Expositor titled, “The Christ that Paul Preached.” The article was written to address the 1913 book, Kyrios Christos, written by Wilhelm Bousset. Vos had earlier written a review article of Bousset’s book for the Princeton Theological Review in 1914. According to Vos, whether one agreed with it or not, the book held great value for the reader. However, in part Vos’s judgment may stem from the positive and frequent use of eschatology as a category for understanding not merely the last things but the presence of the future in the Spirit. These were themes that Vos himself had discussed in his article just a year earlier.

What is more, Warfield’s article deals quite specifically and extensively with Romans 1:3-4. Remember that these verses, among others, are the verses which Vos dealt with in his 1912 article. However, the temptation to see an ulterior agenda in Warfield’s article that specifically names Bousset as the antagonist would be nothing more than conjecture. One would expect more from Warfield. One would, in fact, expect the relationship between Warfield and Vos to be made of sturdier stuff than a subtle attack offered six years after the fact. My own conclusion is that Warfield’s 1918 article is not a clever attack on his friend Vos’s position. Rather, it is an attack on Bousset.

Nevertheless, that is not to say that a comparison between how Vos and Warfield treated Romans 1:3-4 is out of the question. It most certainly is not. What is more, it is just such a comparison that will help us get at the mechanics of sanctification for both Warfield and Vos.

Consider this statement from Warfield early in his article: “We have no abstract theologoumena here, categories of speculative thought appropriate only to the closet.”4 9 What are these “categories of speculative thought”? Warfield may refer to Bousset’s claim that the title Son of God is a title of his own making.5 0 Or, the Princeton theologian may be thinking of the eschatological category Bousset employs at numerous points throughout his work.

Whatever the case may be, Warfield does offer his own understanding of Romans 1:3-4 and it is quite different from that of Vos. According to Warfield, here in these opening verses “We have the great facts about Jesus which made the Gospel that Paul preached the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believed. Nowhere else do we get a more direct description of specifically the Christ that Paul preached.”5 1 What is more, Warfield contends, “In Himself He is the Son of God; and it is only because He is the Son of God in Himself, that He can be and is our Lord.” To put it succinctly, these opening verses of Romans teach us about the person of Christ.

But these verses teach us about more than the person of Christ. They teach us about “the historical Jesus as well as the eternal Son of God.”5 2 According to Vos, as previously mentioned, the clauses in verses 3-4 provide us with an old order of things (fleshly birth) and a new order of things (resurrection).5 3 However, for Warfield, these “two clauses do not express two essentially

49 Benjamin B. Warfield, B iblical Doctrines, vol. 2, The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2000), 236. 50 Wilhelm Bousset, K yrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1970), 207. 51 Warfield, B iblical Doctrines, 236. 52 Ibid., 240. 53 Vos, R edemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, 105.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7 .1 (Fall 2020) different modes of being through which Christ successively passed.”5 4 If not that, what do they express? According to Warfield, “Paul is not here distinguishing times and contrasting two successive modes of our Lord’s being. He is distinguishing elements in the constitution of our Lord’s person.”5 5

What can we take away from this section in our attempt to understand the mechanics of sanctification? There are numerous points which we might glean. However, with regard to sanctification, we ought to learn that the mechanics mirror the aim for each of these men.

For Vos, the aim of sanctification was that Christ be formed in us. With regard to Romans 1:3-4, we discover that this verse is not so much about the event of the resurrection as much as it was about the epochal event of bringing the future to bear upon the present. It should be no surprise to discover that Vos, in his article, moves to 1 Corinthians 15 wherein he expounds the resurrection as an epochal event for both the second Adam and those who belong to His eschatological harvest.

However, Warfield’s aim was a bit different. Those who have faith in Christ are set free from sin and are built up in holiness. Here in Romans, just as in his definition of sanctification, faith looks to the person and work of Christ. We find ourselves part of a weary process.5 6 Yet, says Warfield, “The attitude of the miserable sinner is not only not one of despair; it is not even one of depression; and not one of hesitation or doubt; hope is too weak a word to apply to it. It is an attitude of exultant joy.” Even on days when it seems less than joyful, Warfield says, it is God’s way. He does all things well.

54 Warfield, B iblical Doctrines, 243. 55 Ibid., 246. 56 Warfield, F aith and Life, 372.

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How Sanctification Works: The Westminster Assembly And Progressive Sanctification Rev. Keith A. Evans

Professor of Biblical Counseling Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Question 75: What is sanctification?

Answer: Sanctification is a work of God’s grace, whereby they whom God hath before the foundation of the world chosen to be holy, are in time through the powerful operation of his Spirit, applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them, renewed in their whole man after the image of God; having the seeds of repentance unto life, and all other saving graces, put into their hearts, and those graces so stirred up, increased, and strengthened, as that they more and more die unto sin and rise unto newness of life. ( Westminster Larger Catechism)

Introduction: The Westminster Assembly and Progressive Sanctification

The topic before the reader, is that of how sanctification works—or, in other words, the nature of progressive sanctification. The primary content to address that question will be the Westminster Assembly and their contemporaries. In other words, Westminsterian theology and its contemporary Puritan writings will be the primary documents consulted in addressing how the believer’s progressive sanctification takes place. To ask this chief consideration another way, we are purposing to determine how one increases in holiness. Thus this paper seeks to address how the believer, really and personally, increases in being set apart unto the Lord in this life, as conceived of by mid-1600 majority Reformed and confessional theology.

To further define our task at hand, let us differentiate between what is being spoken to and what is not under our purview. This paper does not seek to address the immediate break from the bondage of sin—the dominion of sin itself being done away with in the believer’s life. Thus, this paper is not dealing with definitive sanctification whatsoever. Additionally, this paper is not addressing the final and complete sanctification that the believer will experience when glorified, when he or she finally sees the Lord. Though both of these aspects, definitive sanctification (i.e., justification), and final sanctification (i.e. glorification), are referenced in the confessional material, they are not doctrines within the scope of the present treatise.

Instead, the sole doctrine before us at present is progressive sanctification—particularly, the practical theology of it, regarding how one becomes more holy.

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Contrasting Various Constructions of Progressive Sanctification

It is common knowledge in reformational theology that regeneration is the sole work of God, worked in the elect monergistically, without cooperation from the person who is being regenerated. It too is apparent in a Reformed framework that the sole ground of justification is the passive and active obedience of Christ on the believer’s behalf—the righteousness of Christ imputed to the believer by faith. But when it comes to sanctification, and how one goes about increasing in said sanctification, it is at that point where Reformed believers become functional Arminians in their construction of theology. It is, as it were, as if the ancient Galatian heresy of “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” is very much alive and active even in the Reformed church today (Gal. 3:3, ESV).

Within the modern and evangelical articulation of progressive sanctification there is the regular talk of synergistic sanctification.1 Additionally, there is the functional Roman Catholic notion of analytical sanctification, that though one must be granted original grace, the believer is responsible for sanctifying himself by his own efforts.2

Contrast such constructions with the language of the Westminster Divines in the Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 75, which says that “Sanctification is a work of God… ” (emphasis mine). Stated more completely, Westminster says that sanctification is “a work of God’s grace, whereby they whom God hath before the foundation of the world chosen to be holy, are in time through the powerful operation of his Spirit, applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them, renewed in their whole man after the image of God” (emphasis added).

The language of monergism and synergism are often reserved for systematic debates and discussions of regeneration, but if category borrowing will be permitted, the Divine’s thoughtful construction of the sentence and definition in Larger Catechism Question 75 establishes a Reformed articulation of monergistic sanctification. God is the one who unilaterally operates, sanctifying the believer and remaking him or her to be conformed to the pattern of Christ. Therefore, the terminology of synergism ought to be set aside, and instead the emphasis ought to be placed where Westministerian theology rightly places it: sanctification is the divine operation of God in the life of the believer.

Thus in answering the preliminary question of “who does the work of sanctification?” we are resoundingly met with the answer of the Triune God.

Who Does the Work of Sanctification? The Operations of the Triune God

Walter Marshall, a 17th Century preacher and contemporary of the Westminster Assembly, frames the present discussion well in his book, the Gospel Mystery of Sanctification. While Marshall was not himself a delegate to the Assembly, nor a contributor to the development of its theology, yet as a contemporary of the Divines, as one who interacted with assembly members, and as one who wrote his most well known work already mentioned on the topic of sanctification, his theology stands as representative of the Puritan articulation at that time.

1 See Heath Lambert, A Theology of Biblical Counseling: The Doctrinal Foundations of Counseling Ministry (Zondervan Academic, 2016) and John M. Frame, S ystematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief, Illustrated Edition (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P & R Publishing, 2013), 1266 for two contemporary illustrations of this point. 2 R. C. Sproul, “The Grounds of Our Justification,” Ligonier Ministries, accessed September 7, 2020, https://www.ligonier.org/blog/grounds-our-justification/.

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In The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, Marshall reflects on his eager seeking of holiness and peace before God. He labored long on the thought of how he could become more holy, a holiness apart from which he would not see God. In such reflection, he came to realize that he had been trying to make his own righteousness the basis of his dealings with God as well as the grounds for his peace.3 It was only when he came to see that his holiness was a result of his mystical union with Christ that a gospel understanding was made clear to him and he arrived at true peace in Christ. As he stated in his own words, “the way we get holy endowments and qualifications necessary to frame and enable us for the immediate practice of the law, is to receive them out of the fullness of Christ, by fellowship with him, and that we may have this fellowship, we must be in Christ and have Christ himself in us, by a mystical union with him.”4

Here the proper sequencing can be seen as revealed by Marshall: the believer’s sanctification does not flow from one’s obedience, but instead one’s obedience flows from his sanctification. The believer’s progressive and increasing holiness is a result of union with Christ. Such an ordering cannot be overstated as to its crucial theological importance. If the believer is sanctified by his obedience, then the believer is the one who sanctifies. But if, instead, one’s obedience is a fruit of sanctification, then it is God who sanctifies, and it is because of His work that the believer obeys in an increasing way.

It is likely that Thomas Goodwin and Richard Baxter were among the first who enabled Walter Marshall to see the error of relying on his own righteousness. Marshall personally interviewed both Goodwin and Baxter about his struggles with the weightiness of his own sin, to which Baxter said that he believed Marshall was taking matters too legalistically, and to which Goodwin said, “Marshall had forgotten to mention the greatest sin of all, of not believing on the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of his sins and the sanctifying of his nature.”5

In this understanding and articulation of sanctification, then, union with Christ is the source of the believer’s holiness.6 After all, 1 Corinthians 1:30 describes Christ himself as our sanctification when Paul says: “Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”

Yet, this work of being made more holy must not be supposed to be the work of the Son alone. Rather, as we see elsewhere in Scripture, God the Father calls the believer to be holy, as He himself is holy. He is the one who sanctifies, for He says in Leviticus 20:26, “And you shall be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine.” Additionally, it can be seen that the loving heavenly Father disciplines His children as revealed in the book of Hebrews chapter 12.

3 Walter Marshall, T he Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, Reformation Heritage Books, 2013 reprint edition, v i. 4 Ibid., 2 7. 5 Maurice J. Roberts et al., A spects of Sanctification: Westminster Conference, 1981, 18. 6 Were it the purview of this paper to further this point, it could be shown that justification and regeneration are the ground of the believer’s holiness, and faith is the instrument of the believer’s sanctification. For the present purposes it will suffice to assert these points. See J.V. Fesko, “A More Perfect Union? Justification and Union with Christ,” in J ustified: Modern Reformation Essay on the Doctrine of Justification, ed. Michael Horton and Ryan Glomsrud ([San Diego?]: Modern Reformation, 2010). As to the point immediately stated in the body of the paper, see Joseph C Morecraft, A uthentic Christianity: An Exposition of the Theology and Ethics of the Westminster Larger Catechism (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision Press, 2009), 203.

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In addition to the work of the Father and the Son, God speaks in that famous prophetic promise of the covenant in Ezekiel 36 that He will infuse holiness within us by the work of His Spirit. For He says: “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezek. 36:27). So of the work of all three persons of the Trinity, it can be rightly said that God the Father sanctifies, God the Son sanctifies, and God the Holy Spirit sanctifies. Thus in asking the most basic question, “who does the work of sanctification in the believer’s life?”, the answer simply put is: God.

Look once again at Westminster Larger Catechism Question 75 and notice the Triune construction in the way the question speaks of this most gracious work, when it says: “Sanctification is a work of God’s grace, whereby they whom God hath before the foundation of the world chosen to be holy, are in time through the powerful operation of his Spirit, applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them, renewed in their whole man after the image of God” (emphasis mine).7

A Cooperative Effort?

If what has just been concluded is true, that God is the one who sanctifies, how then does a Reformed understanding of progressive sanctification reconcile with human responsibility? After all, believers are called upon to obey the Lord. The Holy Text is full of imperatives. Christians are commanded to be holy as the Lord is holy. There is a clear directive to “work out your own salvation,” and even a clear injunctive, “Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy” (Phil 2:12, Lev 20:7). This final command could even more clearly be translated as the King James Version reads: “Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the Lord your God.” These commands seem to stand in paradoxical contradistinction to the notion that God is the one who sanctifies.

To further appreciate this tension, let us revisit Walter Marshall, when he says that “we know that holiness is a part of our salvation and they that think men may or can invent any means effectual for the attainment of it, do ascribe salvation partly to men and rob God of his glory.”8 And elsewhere, “to suggest that we are in need of something more than vital union with Christ [whether a unique experience, or works of the law] is to suggest that Christ is insufficient and what he has accomplished in the gospel is not enough” (parenthetical addition mine).9

Therefore, we are not to rob God of his glory, and we do not for a moment want to suggest that Christ’s finished work is insufficient in the life of the believer. Yet, at the same time we must also embrace the call to human responsibility. Wherein lies the solution to this tension?

We will see the fuller solution to this question below, but first recall the proper sequencing established above: that obedience flows from sanctification, and the fact that the Triune God sanctifies is evidenced by the individual believer obeying His law. Obedience to His law, therefore, is not the instrument of sanctification; instead, faith in Christ is the instrument of sanctification, and all those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will be sanctified, and will progressively obey him more and more. If human obedience, then, is the evidence that the believer is being made more and more holy, the alleviation of the tension has already begun to be resolved.

7 According to the traditional Reformed understanding of election, the Father is the one who appoints believers unto life, choosing them before the foundation of the world according to his good pleasure. Thus, by implication, the Divines are communicating a Triune conceptualization of sanctification. 8 Marshall, G ospel Mystery, 185. 9 Roberts et al., W estminster Conference Papers, 38.

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But if we demonstrate our sanctification through our obedience, and if we lay hold of sanctification by faith in Christ, what place, then, is there for helps? What role can aides play in one’s growth in any way?

Let us further draw out this point from one Westminster Divine to further appreciate these two points—God’s sanctification of man, and the fervent call for human responsibility. William Twisse, the prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly, wrote in his catechetical treatment of the Lord’s Prayer that the holiness of man finds its beginning in the holiness of God. Expounding upon the petition “Hallowed be Thy name” he says, “In this first petition we see the first thing our Savior would have us pray for, is the knowledge of God: For he well knew the want of this is the cause of all evil: And the knowledge of God is the beginning of all goodness.”10 Twisse continues explaining that the believer is to ask to know still more that God “delights in holiness.”

As he moves down the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer and arrives at “Deliver us from evil,” he states that the believer thereby prays, “God will keep us from sins hereafter.”11 Twisse is calling the believer to recognize that the knowledge of God is the origin of all holiness, and that it is entirely by the work of God that we have any ability to walk in holiness. To put this point another way: if we would attempt to keep ourselves from sin, we will utterly fail. If we would have God deliver us from sin, He will utterly succeed!

The above unfolds completely within a discussion of God’s call upon the Christian to pray. God, as sovereign and redeeming Lord, is the sanctifier of men. All the while He provides the means, or helps to the end of sanctification, one of which is prayer.

So in preliminarily answering the question, “if God does the work of sanctification, what place is there for means?”, the answer from the Divines is, “much in every way.”

By Every M eans Necessary!

To return one final time to Walter Marshall’s magnum opus, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, Marshall, after unpacking at length how one is sanctified by faith by believing upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and drawing upon one’s union with Christ as the basis for one’s sanctification, concludes his discourse by pointing to means. Simply because we are sanctified by Christ, in our union with him through faith in the Son of God, in no way nullifies the means afforded to us in the Word of God. After all, these are helps and not hindrances to our sanctification. However, if we make them the basis of our sanctification, then, as Marshall says, they do in fact become impediments to our true holiness, for we once again fall into the trap of sanctification by works of the law and trusting in human effort to sanctify oneself.12 Nevertheless, we must use them, lest we be like “those proud Pharisees and lawyers that thought it a thing beneath them, and refused to be baptized by John.”13

Here we see Marshall mentioning the two primary heads of the means offered to the believer: Word and sacrament. But these, of course, are not the only two presented by Westminsterian

10 William Twisse, A Briefe Catecheticall Exposition of Christian Doctrine Diuided into Foure Catechismes, The Second Catechisme Concerning the Lord’s Prayer, a ccessed August 31, 2020, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A14092.0001.001/1:3?rgn=div1, 1 8-9. 11 Ibid., 24. 12 Marshall, G ospel Mystery, 184 and Roberts et al., W estminster Conference Papers, 33. 13 Ibid., 185.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7 .1 (Fall 2020) theologians on this point. The list of possible means the Lord uses to sanctify believers includes the following:14

1. The Word of God. Diligently giving oneself to the reading, but especially the hearing of the preaching of the Word, is the first and primary means afforded to the believer in one’s sanctification. To this point and to this end, John Flavel said the study of the Scriptures is “the best preservative against sin.”15

2. The diligent listening to the Word. Related to the first, and perhaps a subset of the first, there is the due use not only of the preaching of the Word, but the active, effortful hearing of it.

3. Meditating upon the Word. Reflecting upon and ensuring a devotional depth of understanding of the Word, and committing the precepts of the word to memory, is an added step of laying hold of the contents of the Word in one’s life.

4. The use of good books as an aid to studying the Scriptures. Though secondary sources are no replacement for the Scriptures themselves, they are a useful exposition and development of the theology of the word.

5. Examining one’s state and ways according to and by the word. This help in sanctification may also be termed self-examination. Quoting John Flavel once again, “We should call our hearts to account every evening, and say, ‘O my heart! Where have you been today? Where have your thoughts been wandering? O naughty heart! O vain heart! Could you not abide by the fountain of delights? Is there better pleasure with the creature, than with your redeemer God?’”16

6. Watchfulness in keeping one’s ways. Not only must believers be retroactively self-examining, there is also a spiritual benefit in proactive examination.

7. Resting in Christ. This communion in our union with Christ is not only a means of breaking sin’s dominion (cf. Rom. 6), but it is useful in dismantling sin’s ongoing tyranny and consequences.

8. The sacrament of baptism. This holy ordinance is the formal yoking of oneself to Christ’s bride, and being rightly added to the number of Christ.

9. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. This ordinance emphasizes a frequency of communing with Christ to remember the benefits of His redemption: “Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:25).

10. Hungering after righteousness. The believer’s continual longing and prayer for the Spirit’s work of further sanctification is one of the aides in sanctification.

11. The singing of Psalms with grace in the heart (Eph. 5:19 and Westminster Confession of Faith 21.5).

14 The original compilation of this list of helps was developed from and expanded out of Joseph C Morecraft, A uthentic Christianity: An Exposition of the Theology and Ethics of the Westminster Larger Catechism (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision Press, 2009). 15 John Flavel, W orks of John Flavel, 1st Edition (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1968), 5:504. 16 Ibid., 5:505.

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12. Fasting.

13. The taking and keeping of vows.

14. Associating with and developing close friendships with holy people. In unpacking the fellowship and communion with the saints, one theologian goes back through many of the aforementioned means and speaks of: mutual accountability under the Word, mutual hearing the Word, mutual prayer, etc., thereby enlarging one’s vision for the benefit of the people of God in aiding fellow believers in our sanctification.17

15. Godly discourse.

16. The right use of church discipline.

17. The sanctifying benefit of seeing the faithless and godless fall. Notice in this sobering thought the active call to faithfulness and the work of God in using providential matters external to the believer as a means to further sanctify. To emphasize the appeal to human obedience, and the need for it, George Gillespie commenting on 2 Peter 3:18 says: “If you would not be drawn away after the error of the wicked … so must you, labour still for a greater measure of the lively work of sanctifying grace; in which respects Augustine saith well, that the adversaries of the truth do this good to the true members of the church, that the fall of those makes these to take better hold upon God.”18

18. The right use of church membership.

19. The right use of the Sabbath day. The Divines’ understanding of the Sabbath day would rightly make the contemporary believer blush in our relatively paltry thoughts and use of that day. They speak of sanctifying the day, and the day thereby being useful in sanctifying the believer—as though they genuinely believed that Sabbath was made for man’s benefit (and not man made for the Sabbath)! William Gouge, Westminster Assembly member, wrote an entire treatise on The Sabbath’s Sanctification, speaking of the spiritual benefits of the Sabbath Day to the believer and the promises contained in setting the Sabbath apart as holy:

A conscionable sanctifying of the Lords day, by a due observing that which God hath prescribed, is a special means to … quicken and increase the graces which have been formerly wrought in us. The Lords day is a special means of renewing what is decayed. As weights of a clock by oft winding up are kept continually going, so grace by the foresaid duties is kept in continual exercise.19

He goes on addressing the promises contained in Lord’s Day observance when he says:

Promises, great and precious promises, being made by one that is able to perform what he promises, and with all is true and faithful, and in that kind will not fail to make good his word, are a strong motive to stir up men to do with the uttermost of their power the things whereunto such and such promises are made. But promises, great and many, by God himself, of whose power, and truth no

17 See Brian G. Hedges, C hrist Formed in You: The Power of the Gospel for Personal Change (Wapwallopen, PA: Shepherd Press, 2010), 204, as he cites several authors and theologians who develop the corporate nature of the means of grace. 18 George Gillespie, T he Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Edinburgh: 1844), 1:65. 19 William Gouge, T he Sabbaths Sanctification (EEBO Editions, ProQuest, 2011), 38-9.

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question can be made, are made to such as are conscionable in keeping the Sabbath.2 0

William Gouge is providing that biblical balance of doing that which the believer has the power to do, all the while maintaining that it is God who works, wills, and promises growth in godliness.

20. Repenting of sin. Thomas Brooks helpfully indicates that this act is the work of the Spirit in the believer, for genuine repentance cannot happen in the natural man, and is impossible apart from grace.2 1 Thus, consistently and diligently seeking to conform one’s life to the pattern of Christ, mortifying the flesh and walking according to the Spirit, is yet another faithful help in the lifelong pursuit of holiness.

As the next points show, the Divines also saw a personal benefit in the divinely appointed institutions of family, church, and state, so far as the external means of sanctification are concerned.

21. Sanctification through the means of the family. Seeing the family’s benefits flow to the church and also the commonwealth, Edmund Calamy, Westminster Assembly member, said, “First reform your own families, and then you will be the fitter to reform the family of God. Let the master reform his servant, the father his child, the husband his wife,” and so on.2 2 Notice how the divinely appointed authority (master, father, husband) is spoken of as having sanctifying influence on the one under godly authority (servant, child, wife). It certainly cannot be said, in this case, that the servant, child, or wife is sanctifying themself, but Calamy freely speaks of the superior “reforming,” or making holy, those under their biblical charge and care (see also Eph. 5:26 in this regard).

22. Sanctification through the means of the church. William Perkins points out that “it is the duty of every believer to further the good estate of the true church by the three means of: prayer, edification, and the conferring of temporal blessings (for this is the principle end for which God has given riches).” Expounding upon edification, he says, “All pertaining to the church of God, without exception, must put their helping hands to further this building, by using all good means to draw our kindred, friends, and neighbors to the love and obedience to the true religion.”2 3 There is once again a clear call to action, but at the same time an external acting upon the one being drawn into, and built up in the church, grown up by the ministry of the church, and cared for through the church. Puritan theologians had a category for external means acting upon those under authority “passively sanctifying” the believer (if such terminology will be allowed).

23. Sanctification through the means of the state. As far as sanctification through the external institutions are concerned, we finally arrive at the state. Suffice it to say, the Puritans saw the commonwealth as aiding in steeling oneself to avoid all forms of sluggardness and laziness.2 4

20 Gouge, T he Sabbaths Sanctification, 40. 21 Thomas Brooks, T he Unsearchable Riches of Christ, in The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander B. Grosart (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1866), 3:104 and Thomas Brooks, P recious Remedies against Satan’s Devices (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1968), 63. 22 Edmund Calamy, E ngland’s Looking Glass (London: 1642), 31. 23 William Perkins, T reatise on Vocations, vol. 10, T he Works of William Perkins, (Reformation Heritage Books, 2020), 82. 24 Roberts et al., W estminster Conference Papers, 70-1.

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These three institutions, which are also external means of growth in godliness, cannot be controlled by the individual. Nevertheless, the individual can entrust himself to those placed over him in the Lord, and thereby actively cultivate that which he is the recipient of. In all of this, the Puritan balance of human responsibility is evident, while at the same time they have in no way minimized God’s sovereignty and ultimate responsibility. The Divines upheld every means which the Lord uses in the sanctification of the believer, while simultaneously maintaining God himself as the primary and ultimate worker in one’s sanctification.

At last we conclude the overarching list of means as we finally consider:

24. Meditation upon general revelation and providence. Stephen Charnock, the English Puritan and Divine and contemporary to the Westminster Assembly, in speaking of the place of observing nature, states:

[Nothing] … can meet our eyes but affords us lessons worthy of our thoughts, besides the general notices of the power and wisdom of the Creator. Thus may the sheep read us a lesson of patience, the dove of innocence, the ant and bee raise blushes in us for our sluggishness, and the stupid ox and dull ass correct and shame our ungrateful ignorance … such a view of spiritual truth in sensible pictures would clear our knowledge, purify our fancies, animate our affections, encourage our graces, disgrace our vices, and both argue and snare us into duty, and thus take away all the causes of our wild wandering thoughts at once.2 5

Notice once again the simultaneous call to personal activity and yet functional passivity. God uses that which is external to the believer in order to bring about sanctification. The believer’s mind is actively engaged in the observation of these things, and yet the Lord is using his works of creation and providence to draw the Christian’s mind heavenward—to think upon heavenly truths as prompted by that which one observes.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but perhaps one final catchall could be mentioned at this point. All the Assembly would heartily affirm and uphold as woven throughout the others that obedience to the law of Christ regardless of one’s mood, emotions, or spiritual state is necessary. This notion is unfolded from the biblical concept that “obedience is better than sacrifice.”

More, of course, could be said on all of these points. But this list of twenty-four aides to the believer’s holiness can stand as thoroughly representative of the Divine’s thinking. While the above twenty-four stated items may appear to be little more than a dry list and mere recitation of the sundry means which the Lord has provided to His children, the variety of ways the Lord sanctifies those whom He loves is perfectly evident. Human responsibility is most certainly at the fore, but we also find that which acts upon the believer as external means in our sanctification. We see the usefulness of others in our growth in holiness, the function of the institutions of family, church, and state, and the place of providence in growing us in character. In other words, it is as though the Lord uses every means possible—every lawful means possible—in bringing about our holiness. At the same time, the Lord in His Word calls upon every believer to use those lawful means to advance one’s holiness.

Summary & Conclusion: How Then Does God Progressively Sanctify the Believer?

Sanctification, simply put, is the work of God. But it is a work of God wherein He calls and enables active effort in walking in step with the work of the Spirit. He uses the means of grace,

25 Steven Charnock, W orks of Stephen Charnock (Edinburgh; Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2010), 5:309.

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Word, sacrament, prayer, the Sabbath Day, Christian fellowship, as well as the help of others (Heb. 12, Eph. 5). He draws upon circumstances and His work of providence, good and ill, trial and blessing, causing all of these to grow one’s character. He leverages His work of creation and the importance of general revelation. He takes the believer’s Spirit-wrought holy efforts, as well as the Spirit’s direct intervention, in making the Christian more holy. It is as though God brings every means, even the full gospel itself, to bear upon the believer in one’s purification, thereby underscoring the notion that “apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Even the ordo salutis is brought to bear upon one’s sanctification. God eternally and unalterably decrees His children to be holy—they are elected unto holiness, united to Christ who is their holiness, and their sins are atoned for that they might be holy unto the Lord. Then they are effectually called to be holy, and irresistibly willed to be holy, otherwise the believer would eternally resist and remain unholy. Next they are regenerated unto holiness, by faith, and are enabled to repent from unholiness and unto holiness. After they are justified and granted initial holiness, they are sanctified progressively in holiness, and they will be glorified unto final and perfected holiness. The command to “be holy as I am holy” will be irrevocably accomplished in the believers life, for, after all, “this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thess. 4:3)!

The actuality of one’s holiness flows from the reality of the Gospel itself—for God brings the full weight of the Gospel to bear upon one becoming like Him.2 6 And while God’s work in sanctification is established, man’s call to vigorous obedience is never overthrown. In fact, just the opposite—human ability and responsibility to obey is established and upheld. Therefore it can rightly be said: use every means afforded to you to actively cultivate the salvation that has been worked in you, knowing that “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).

In conclusion, one final illustration of the above balance will be given. In Ephesians 5, a chapter on marriage and the godly functioning of the home, we are met with a passage on sanctification that we often overlook as a passage on how one is made more and more holy by the Lord. Paul says, starting in verse twenty-five:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands…

There are several things to note about this passage. First, means are present (washing of the water with the Word). Second, the church’s responsibility for her own sin is never overthrown or dismissed out of hand. Her sins are hers. Her blemishes are her own. And yet, third, Christ does not treat the church’s sin as our responsibility, but He takes responsibility for our sins as His responsibility. He is unswervingly committed to eliminating it, that He might present us spotless on the last great day. Praise be to God, our Triune God, that He is the one who sanctifies. Otherwise, the church’s efforts would be altogether fruitless!

26 Hedges, C hrist Formed in You, 123-5.

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The Right Channel of New Obedience: Sanctification in T he S um of Saving Knowledge1 Dr. David G. Whitla

Professor of Church History Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

In the year 1643, the Solemn League and Covenant was subscribed to by the three British kingdoms. Its stated goal was “to endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of church-government, directory for worship and catechizing.”2 Accordingly, by the end of the decade, the Westminster Assembly had prepared the Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and its various Directories, which were quickly bound together and published. However, from the year 1650, virtually all editions of the Standards also included an anonymous little book that was neither a product of the Assembly, nor ratified by either Parliament or the Scottish kirk’s General Assembly. That book (or tract) is entitled the Sum of Saving Knowledge, or to give its lengthy seventeenth century subtitle, “A Briefe Summe of Christian Doctrine contained in the Holy Scriptures, and holden forth in the foresaid Confession of Faith and Catechisms, together with The Practical Use thereof.” 3

The Historical Context of T he S um of Saving Knowledge

The book was written in 1650 by two Scottish Covenanter clergymen: veteran minister and professor of Divinity in Glasgow, David Dickson (1583-1663), and his recently-appointed colleague on the faculty, James Durham (1622-58), who was then just in his twenties. It is reported that the two men would often go for an afternoon walk in the hills and discuss theology. As they did so, they concluded that for many of their parishioners the new Standards might prove a bit daunting— “ too large and dark.”4 So, in order to make Westminster theology more accessible, they decided to compile a brief summary, along with notes of practical application, for the average person in the pew. They apparently dictated this summary to their secretary, Patrick Simson, as they walked along, and then the latter applicatory sections were compiled from some of Dickson’s sermon notes.5 Thus the Sum of Saving Knowledge came into being, and it was an immediate hit!

1 This article is a considerably expanded version of a lecture of the same title delivered at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary’s Westminster Conference, Pittsburgh PA, September 12, 2020. 2 “The Solemn League and Covenant,” in James Kerr, T he Covenants and the Covenanters; Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation (Edinburgh: R.W. Hunter, 1895), 132. 3 D. Hay Fleming, “‘The Sum of Saving Knowledge,’” P resbyterian and Reformed Review 10, no. 38 (1899): 322. 4 Robert Wodrow, A nalecta (n.p.: Edinburgh, 1843), 1:166-7. 5 Ibid., 1:166. Cf. Fleming, “‘The Sum of Saving Knowledge,’” 319 and John MacPherson, T he Sum of Saving Knowledge with Introduction and Notes (Handbooks for Bible Classes and Private Students) (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1886), 8.

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It is difficult to exaggerate the impact that the Sum of Saving Knowledge had on Scottish Presbyterianism in subsequent centuries, although remarkably, it is scarcely known among Reformed Christians today. As mentioned already, the Sum was so highly thought of that almost every edition of the Standards since 1650 has included it among the documents.6 And, if that were not enough of an encouragement to dig it out and read it, at least ten Covenanter martyrs in their dying testimonies specifically mention and recommend the Sum. James Stuart, executed at Gallowlee, 1681, declared, “I adhere to the glorious work of Reformation, Confession of Faith, Larger and Shorter Catechisms.... And I adhere to the Sum of Saving Knowledge, wherein is held forth the life and marrow of religion.”7 And Walter Smith, about to be hanged with Donald Cargill at the Grassmarket in 1681, urged from the scaffold, “My dear friends, I leave this as my last advice to you: make use of that book which contains the Confession of Faith, Catechisms, Sum of Saving Knowledge, Directory of Worship.”8 Even the great 19t h Century Scottish preacher Robert Murray M’Cheyne confided to his diary that this book had been instrumental in his conversion: “Read in the Sum of Saving Knowledge, the work which I think first wrought a saving change in me. How gladly would I renew the reading of it, if that change might be carried on to perfection!”9 With endorsements like these, it should be clear that this is a book we need to be better acquainted with!

The Contents of T he S um of Saving Knowledge

The Sum is divided into four brief sections. The first section contains the doctrinal meat, and is somewhat confusingly given the same title as the whole tract, “The Sum of Saving Knowledge.” It essentially provides a crash course in covenant theology—how men and women are saved by the Gospel.10 The remaining three sections contain the application of that theology. The second section is thus entitled, “The Practical Use of Saving Knowledge”—which is to convince a man of sin, righteousness and judgment—and the third section, “Warrants to Believe,” is an outstanding defense of the free offer of the Gospel.11 The final section concludes with a searching quest for assurance entitled, “The Evidences of True Faith.” And this is where the Sum helpfully treats the matter of sanctification, which is the focus of this article. This section is further subdivided into four assertions about sanctification as follows:

As evidences of true faith by fruits, four things are required:

1. That the believer be soundly convinced in his judgment, of his obligation to keep the whole moral law, all the days of his life; and that not the less, but so much the more, because he has been delivered by Christ from the covenant of works and curse of the law. 2. That he endeavor to grow in the exercise and daily practice of godliness and righteousness.12

6 Fleming, “‘The Sum of Saving Knowledge,’” 320-4. 7 Ibid., 318. Cf. J.H. Thompson, ed., A Cloud of Witnesses, for the Royal Prerogatives of Jesus Christ (Edinburgh, 1874), 218. 8 Fleming, “‘The Sum of Saving Knowledge,’” 323. 9 M’Cheyne’s Diary, March 11, 1834, cited in Ibid. Cf. John Howie, T he Scots Worthies, ed. W H Carslaw (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1846), 294. 10 It describes “our woeful condition by nature by breaking the covenant of works; The remedy provided in Christ Jesus by the covenant of grace; The means provided in the Covenant of Grace; the Blessings conveyed by these means” (Heads I-IV). 11 For a thorough discussion on the Free Offer in seventeenth century Scottish theology and in James Durham in particular, see Donald MacLean, J ames Durham (1622–1658) and the Gospel Offer in Its Seventeenth-Century Context (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015). MacLean’s brief treatment of T he Sum of Saving Knowledge is found on pp 145-7. 12 There are as many editions of the S um as compilations of the Westminster Standards; this essay uses the author’s own edited text.

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The first two subsections stress that while the Christian is saved by Christ from the curse of the law as a covenant of works, this in no way renders the law mute in the life of the believer. On the contrary, he must be “soundly convinced in his judgment” that he is still under obligation to keep the moral law of God. This third use of the law provides the moral directive for his “daily practice of godliness and righteousness.” In other words, sanctification is not only definitive but progressive.

Thus far the Sum clearly echoes Westminster’s doctrine of sanctification.13 But where the Sum really excels, and in some sense even exceeds the Confession, is in its practical guide to the dynamics of daily sanctification in the third and fourth paragraph of this section:

[It is] required....

3. That the course of his new obedience run in the right channel to all the duties of love towards God and man, that is, through faith in Christ, and through a good conscience. 4. That he keep close communion with the fountain Christ Jesus, from whom the grace must flow forth to produce good fruits.

This essay focuses on these words, primarily authored by David Dickson (whose sermons form the basis for this section of the Sum) ,14 which offer some wonderful doctrinal and practical insights into how the believer grows in godliness day by day using the idea of the right channel of new obedience. My goal is not only to bring to light from the vaults of historical theology some of the Sum’s helpful emphases on this doctrine of sanctification; I hope I may persuade some readers to pick up their copies of the Westminster Standards and discover the S um for themselves.

The Manner of Sanctification in T he Sum of Saving Knowledge

Arguably, the Sum’s most significant contribution to the Reformed doctrine of sanctification lies in its stress on the manner in which the believer pursues holiness in the third subheading. It is not enough for the Christian to be “soundly convinced in his judgment” that he should “keep the whole moral Law.” This daily obedience must also “run in the right channel.” It must be motivated by the right incentives, and be effectually propelled by the right source. The Christian’s obedience to the law in sanctification is not to be like the old, slavish obedience offered under the covenant of works, but must be prompted by a sincere, daily faith in Christ, obedience from a cleansed conscience, and drawing strength from Him by the Spirit. To unpack this, Dickson turns to a former exposition of 1 Timothy 1:5, “Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith” (NKJV). From this passage, he draws “these seven doctrines,” which we will discuss in turn:

1st Doctrine: That obedience to the Law must flow from love, and love from a pure heart, and a pure heart from a good conscience, and a good conscience from sincere faith: this he makes the only right channel of good works.

The Christian’s life of new obedience flows naturally through a channel carved out by Christ. Our motivation to daily obey God’s law must be love—love to God and love to our neighbor. It is not a slavish obedience, driven by fear of judgment should we fail. Nor is it a mere external conformity to a set of pious rules; it must flow from a pure heart. The heart can only

13 Cf. Westminster Shorter Catechism 35: “Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.” 14 See footnote 4 above.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7 .1 (Fall 2020) be pure when the conscience is free from the guilt of sin, and the conscience can only be free from the guilt of sin when it is exercising sincere faith in Jesus Christ for salvation.

Here then is the right channel for progressive sanctification: it flows from the definitive reality of justification. Sanctification will be hampered if we live each day under a consciousness of sin’s guilt, whereas exercising daily faith in the finished work of Christ sprinkles our consciences and stirs up love and yearning to live holy lives.15 Far from undermining our new obedience to God’s law, a proper estimation of the free grace of the Gospel will propel it down the right channel.

2n d Doctrine: That the purpose of the Law is not that men may be justified by their obedience to it, as the Jewish doctors falsely taught.

The authors of the Sum were conscious that their readers may well be pursuing wrong channels of new obedience. Lesser motives to sanctification often operate in the hearts of believers, and one of the most common then (as now) is legalism. The Christian’s “new obedience” in sanctification is not a return to the slavish obedience of the covenant of works: “Do this, and you will live” (Luke 10:28). We are not to imagine that the works we perform in sanctification are meritorious, or that our reconciliation with God is based on our works of obedience after we profess faith. This was the trap of the “Jewish doctors” of 1 Timothy 1:4, who while professing to be savingly in covenant with God, were nevertheless basing their acceptance with God on their works of piety. Here we see the authors’ pastoral concern for the flock, and it remains a very common problem, even for Evangelical and Reformed Christians. It is well that we devote ourselves to the means of grace, but these outward acts of piety, good and lawful in themselves, can quickly be abstracted from Christ to become ends in themselves, rather than means to the end of holiness.16

3rd Doctrine: That the true purpose of the Law as it is preached to the people is, that they, by the Law, might be made to see their deserved condemnation, and should sincerely flee to Christ, to be justified by faith in Him. This is what the text says, while it makes love to flow through faith in Christ.

4t h Doctrine: That no man can set himself in love to obey the Law, except insofar as his conscience is first quieted by faith, or is seeking to be quieted in Christ; for “the purpose of the commandment is love from … a good conscience, and from sincere faith.”

The Sum here teaches that we cannot properly employ the third use of the Law for sanctification until we have first experienced the first use of the Law driving us to Christ for justification. “No man” will ever “set himself in love to obey the Law” if his conscience is still screaming at him.

We are perhaps sometimes tempted to think of the first use of the Law as being for unbelievers only—driving them to Christ for redemption—but that after conversion, it then

15 In his published commentary on this passage (perhaps echoing the sermonic source for this practical section of the S um? ), Dickson explained the “right channel” in this way, “T his Faith hee describes from a three-fold effect. (1) That true faith in the propitiatory blood of Christ renders the conscience good, or peaceable and quiet. (2) That the conscience being now pacified, Faith will not suffer that the heart be any longer delighted in evil, but rather endeavours after purity, and that it may be purified from all evil affections (3) That true Faith is not idle in that which is good, but stirs up a man diligently to labour in the obedience of every Precept, by love to God and men. ” David Dickson, A n Exposition of All St. Pauls Epistles, Together with an Explanation of Those Other Epistles of the Apostles, St. James, Peter, John and Jude (London: Francis Eglesfield, 1659), 159. 16 For a helpful recent discussion, see Sinclair B. Ferguson, T he Whole Christ. Legalism, Antinomianism & Gospel Assurance—Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (Wheaton: Crossway, 2016).

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And it is this sight of the cross alone, Dickson says, that quiets the conscience—not our perceived progress in sanctification, not how well we obeyed today, not how good our devotions were today, or how many people we witnessed to, or how many Scriptures we memorized. Practical sanctification involves preaching the Gospel to ourselves each day as the bedrock of our striving against sin and putting on holiness. Yet many believers effectively drive a wedge between justification and sanctification in their practice, if not in their theology. “Justification happened,” they reason, “when I was saved,” and so it is scarcely recalled in the course of their Christian lives. Next in the ordo salutis comes sanctification, but because sanctification is existentially severed from justification in their minds, it often becomes to them a form of law-keeping drudgery. They may hold to the covenant of grace confessionally, but they conflate it with a covenant of works practically. This issue was commonly addressed in Puritan casuistry, as we shall see in the next section.

5t h Doctrine: That insincere faith goes to Christ without reckoning with the Law, and so lacks an errand; but sincere faith does reckon with the Law, and so is forced to flee for refuge to Christ, as “the end of the law for righteousness” (Rom. 10:4), because it finds itself so often guilty of breaking the Law: for “the purpose of the commandment is … sincere faith.”

Here Dickson warns against what we might call “short-cut sanctification.” Christians who have been taught that the law has no place in the life of the believer, skip past the law and go directly to Christ for sanctification “without an errand” because they have not first stopped at the conscience-quieting measure of justification. This short-cut sanctification leads to frustration and heartbreak because he “finds [him]self so often guilty of breaking the Law” despite his best efforts to pretend it no longer applies to him! Instead, he should accept and embrace the law’s conviction of his failures, and flee to Christ with “sincere faith” to have his

17 Westminster Confession of Faith 19:6: “Although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified or condemned; yet is it of great use to them, as well as to others; in that, as a rule of life, informing them of the will of God and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly; discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts, and lives; so as, examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin; together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of His obedience. It is likewise of use to the regenerate, to restrain their corruptions, in that it forbids sin; and the threatenings of it serve to show what even their sins deserve, and what afflictions in this life they may expect for them, although freed from the curse thereof threatened in the law...” 18 E lsewhere, Dickson acknowledged how false teachers similarly undermine the second use of the law, because they “are wholly exercised in discussing of smaller matters, which may bee fetched from the Law ... yet they refer not the Law to its true end ... which is, that men by the Law being led to the knowledge of sin, and deserved misery, may seriously betake themselves to Christ, by Faith unfeigned.” Dickson, S t. Pauls Epistles, 159.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7 .1 (Fall 2020) conscience quieted and the law silenced by Christ’s finished work. Only then will he be able to joyfully offer new obedience.

In Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Faithful shares with Christian this very struggle with the Law:

[FAITHFUL.] I looked behind me, and saw one coming after me, swift as the wind ... as soon as the Man overtook me, he was but a word and a blow: for down he knockt me, and laid me for dead. But when I was a little come to myself again, I asked him why he served me so? He said, “Because of my secret inclining to Adam the first;” and with that, he struck me another deadly blow on the breast, and beat me down backward, so I lay at his foot as dead as before. So when I came to myself again, I cried him mercy; but he said, I know not how to show mercy, and with that knockt me down again. He had doubtless made an end of me, but that one came by, and commanded him to stop. CHR[ISTIAN]. Who was that, that made him stop? FAITH[FUL]. I did not know him at first, but as he went by, I perceived the holes in his hands, and his side; then I concluded that it was our Lord. CHR[ISTIAN]. That Man that overtook you, was Moses. He spareth the temper of none, neither knoweth he how to shew mercy to those that transgress his Law.19

Like Faithful, we often have a “secret inclining to Adam the first.” We continue to live under a covenant of works in practice, and find that the Law continues to beat us until Christ comes to remind us of his nail-pierced hands and side, which have set us free from the Law’s condemning power, and quiet our conscience by faith, and so we, “being delivered from our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life” (Luke 1:74-5).

6t h Doctrine. In order that the fruits of love may be brought forth in particular actions, it is necessary that the heart be brought to the hatred of all sin and uncleanness, and to a steadfast purpose to follow all holiness universally: for “the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart.”

7t h Doctrine. That sincere faith is able to make the conscience good, and the heart pure, and the man lovingly obedient to the Law; for when Christ’s blood is seen by faith to quiet justice, then the conscience becomes quiet also, and will not allow the heart to entertain the love of sin. Rather, it sets the man at work to fear God for His mercy, and to obey all His commandments out of love to God for His free gift of justification, by grace bestowed on him: For “this is the purpose of the commandment.” Indeed, this obtains more obedience from a man than any other way.

The Sum teaches us here that love for Christ generates hatred for sin—a vital ingredient for its successful mortification. It is impossible for the heart to love sin when it has seen Christ’s blood by faith to quiet justice. In the right channel of new obedience, the Gospel of free justification quiets the conscience before the law’s penalty so that it becomes not an object of dread, or harsh slavish obedience. Instead we say with David, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day!” (Psalm 119:97). Dickson is saying something profoundly practical and searching as we keep the law in pursuit of personal sanctification: We will only love the law to the same extent that our conscience has been quieted by the Gospel. It is faith in Christ’s finished work that fuels our hatred and crucifixion of sin (mortification) and our “steadfast purpose” to please Christ by holy lives (vivification).

19 John Bunyan, T he Pilgrim’s Progress ( London: Samuel Bagster, 1845), 59.

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For Dickson, a conscience quieted by sincere faith in the living reality of our justification is not a recipe for antinomianism–it will not produce lazy Christians, but energize them to greater effort in the battle against sin.2 0 The one who loves most, works hardest; but it is a labor of love to Christ, borne of saving faith. As Dickson writes elsewhere, “I ... do no less urge this whole doctrine of sanctification, and all good works which in the Law are commanded, than any Zealot of the Law, although not to the same end. ”2 1 Or as Walter Marshall would put it in his classic work, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification (1692), “We must first receive the comforts of the Gospel that we may be able to perform sincerely the Duties of the Law.”2 2

The Source of Sanctification in T he Sum of Saving Knowledge

The right channel of new obedience thus emphasizes that sanctification is inseparable from justification. And this is underlined in the fourth and final subheading, where the Sum roots sanctification firmly in our union and communion with Christ, based on John 15:5:

The fourth thing required as evidence of true faith is this: keeping close communion with Christ, the fountain of all graces and all good works. This is held forth in John 15:5, where Christ, using the metaphor of a vine teaches us:

1. That by nature we are wild barren briers, till we are changed by coming to Christ; and that Christ is that noble vine who has all life and sap of grace in Himself, and who is able to change the nature of everyone that comes to Him, and to communicate spirit and life to as many as shall believe in Him… 2. That unless a man is engrafted into Christ, and united to Him by faith, he cannot do even the least good work by his own strength ... “For without Me,” says He, “you can do nothing.” 3. That this mutual inhabitation is the fountain and infallible cause of constant continuing and abounding in well-doing: For “whoever abides in Me, and I in him,” says He, “bears much fruit.”

The Sum here echoes Westminster Confession of Faith 13:3, “Of Sanctification.”2 3 Believers do not simply need Christ to be converted; they also need to make daily use of the risen and reigning Christ for their sanctification. Union with Christ is not just a factor in our justification—something we just accept intellectually as a point of confessional orthodoxy at conversion. It is a practical reality that we must daily call upon to empower our ongoing sanctification. The Sum addresses Christians who are attempting to be sanctified “by their own strength,” instead of coming to the “fountain and infallible cause of all [our] well-doing,” namely, our union with Christ. The Christian who appropriates this by faith, is in the right channel of new obedience. It does not mean less effort in striving for godliness; it means “struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me” (Col. 1:29).2 4

The Sum concludes and summarizes its teaching on sanctification in these words of practical application: “Therefore, let every watchful believer who wants to strengthen himself in faith

20 As John Murray explains, “The death and resurrection of Christ are the ground of justification; justification is the basis of sanctification, for it lays the foundation upon which a life of holiness can rest and develop; hence death and resurrection of Christ underlie sanctification.” John Murray, Principles of Conduct (London: Tyndale Press, 1957), 206. 21 Dickson, S t. Pauls Epistles, 1 59. Italics mine. 22 Walter Marshall, T he Gospel Mystery of Sanctification (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 1999 [repr. 1692]), 102. 23 “[Sanctification is] through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ ... so the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (Westminster Confession of Faith 13:3). 24 Cf. Dickson’s sermon on Hebrews 2:11: “The sanctification which is behoveth us to have, must proceed from Christ: no holiness until we bee in Him.” Dickson, S t. Pauls Epistles, 224.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7 .1 (Fall 2020) and obedience, reason this way: ‘Whoever daily employs Christ Jesus for cleansing his conscience and affections from the guiltiness and filthiness of sins against the Law, and to enable him to obey the Law in love, has the evidence of true faith in himself.’” For Dickson, a correct view of the doctrine of sanctification addresses a significant spiritual struggle, by supporting assurance of salvation in the elect. Christian living within the right channel of new obedience provides a significant evidence that we are indeed true believers.

The Sum thus carefully walks a theological tightrope between legalism and antinomianism. Martin Luther famously described the challenge of maintaining this balance by describing a drunk peasant who falls off his horse and climbs up again only to fall off on the other side. All too often in church history, the theological pendulum has swung between these two extremes, and the seventeenth century was no different. This fact is illustrated by a brief survey of the polemical and pastoral context of the Sum, which helps us understand why it placed particular stress upon this right channel of new obedience, and why it is so relevant to our own day.

The Polemical Context of T he S um of Saving Knowledge

The publication of the Sum in 1650 was certainly timely. Covenanter political power was then being propped up by Oliver Cromwell’s military support, yet within a year he would defeat the Covenanters at the Battle of Dunbar and flood Presbyterian Scotland with antinomian sects.2 5 In such a climate, Dickson, Durham and other Covenanter writers carefully stressed this right channel of new obedience because their churches were suddenly being confronted with several wrong channels of obedience.2 6 These Antinomian views still confront the church today. The leading Antinomian writers to which Dickson and the Sum were responding were men like John Eaton, John Saltmarsh and Tobias Crisp. Arguably with sincere intentions, these Antinomians and their followers sought to elevate grace against the legalism they saw prevalent in their churches, but they had let the theological pendulum swing much too far.2 7

25 In 1651, Cromwell’s government commandeered Scotland’s printing presses and began to disseminate anti-Presbyterian and antinomian teachings. See R. Scott Spurlock, “Cromwell’s Edinburgh Press and the Development of Print Culture in Scotland,” T he Scottish Historical Review 90, no. 2 (October 1, 2011): 179–203; i dem., C romwell and Scotland: Conquest and Religion, 1650–1660 (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2007). Scots like Samuel Rutherford had debated antinomianism at the Westminster Assembly in the previous decade, and the Westminster Standards and strict censorship of the press in Scotland had until then provided a bulwark against its teachings. See Samuel Rutherford, A Survey of the Spirituall Antichrist (London: Andrew Crooke, 1647); Whitney G. Gamble, C hrist and the Law: Antinomianism at the Westminster Assembly (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2018) and Stephen J. Casselli, D ivine Rule Maintained: Anthony Burgess, Covenant Theology, and the Place of the Law in Reformed Scholasticism (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2016). 26 Within a few decades of the publication of the S um, a second outburst of English Antinomianism brought an overreaction with the development of Neonomianism, usually associated with Richard Baxter. The S um’s s tress on the “right channel” is a useful corrective to this error too. In an effort to deny Antinomianism’s renunciation of works of the law in the life of the believer, Baxter taught that the Gospel was a “new law” (n eonomos) that replaced the OT law. The sinner’s faith in this “new law” of the Gospel a nd the imputed righteousness of Christ t ogether was the grounds of justification. This was essentially a conflation of justification and sanctification, and was ably refuted by Walter Marshall, T he Gospel-Mystery of Sanctification (London: T. Parkhurst, 1692). For a helpful survey of Marshall’s doctrine of sanctification, which closely echoes the emphases of the S um, see John E. Marshall, “Walter Marshall and the Origins of Sanctification,” W estminster Conference Papers (1981): 17–40. 27 Antinomianism is a notoriously difficult phenomenon to get a handle on because of the ambiguity and distinctiveness of many of its many advocates. For example, while some approached the level of the “Ranters” in their shocking libertinism, others in the broad antinomian tent were far more orthodox. Campbell’s comment could probably be applied to several of the latter: “It seems to be the

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In his commentary on the Westminster Confession, Truth’s Victory over Error (1684), Dickson defined the key tenets of Antinomianism as they relate to sanctification as follows: “The Antinomians err who maintain, that Believers under the Gospel are not obliged to the obedience of the moral law....”2 8 And elsewhere: “The Antinomians err who maintain, That those who are justified, are sanctified onely, by the imputed holiness of Christ; not by infusing inherent holyness, or any Spiritual qualities into them, by the help [of] which, they are enabled to live holily.”2 9

In other words, Antinomians drove a wedge between the Old Testament and the New Testament so that the former was exclusively a covenant of works and the latter exclusively a covenant of grace. Thus, they reasoned, Christ’s finished work had set the believer free from any need to obey the Decalogue. And more perplexingly, justification and sanctification were effectively conflated: both righteousness and personal holiness were imputed to the believer by faith, and so to urge believers to strive for holiness was considered a denial of free grace.30 Dickson responded with a reassertion of the orthodox position that, “They who are effectually Called, and Regenerated, having a new Spirit created in them, [are] farther sanctified, really and personally, through the vertue of Christ’s death, and resurrection, by His Word and Spirit dwelling in them.”31

The same basic Antinomian errors are of course alive and well in the churches today. The more recent forms of Antinomianism consist of well-intentioned overreactions to legalistic emphases which had wrongly separated sanctification from justification in the opposite direction: making the believer’s degree of acceptance with God based on the degree of their personal sanctification, rather than the finished work of Christ. “Higher Life” teaching in Evangelicalism emerged in the 19t h century with various “Holiness” groups, promoted by the activism of the Keswick Movement, the revivalism of D.L. Moody and the missiology of J. Hudson Taylor,32 encouraging Christians to “let go and let God”; to “abide in Christ” in a passive sense (often by some “defining moment” second act of faith) and so achieve a higher plane of Christian living. These overreactions to legalism were ably responded to by B.B. Warfield and others, but they were also answered pre-emptively by the older writers such as the authors of the Sum of Saving Knowledge. With one voice, they taught that “sanctification is not a second blessing, but one of the inseparable blessings accompanying salvation.”33 case that [Tobias] Crisp was simply confused and ambiguous rather than heretical.” K.M. Campbell, “The Antinomian Controversies of the 17th Century,” W estminster Conference Papers (1971): 72. 28 He continues: “this Tenet of the Antinomians, turns the Grace of God into wantonness; overturneth the end of Christian liberty, and of the coming, and death of Christ, and paveth a way leading to all impiety, and the indulging of the lusts of the flesh, and fostering the Dominion of Sin. ” David Dickson, Truth’s Victory over Error (Edinburgh: John Reid, 1684), 145-7. This work has been reprinted by the Banner of Truth (Edinburgh: 2007). 29 Ibid., 88. 30 This is of course a species of perfectionism, confusing the vicarious-declarative and personal-ethical dimensions of salvation. In his dispute with the English Baptist Antinomian Philip Cary, John Flavel observed, “The [Antinomians] speak very slightingly of trying ourselves by marks and signs of grace ... [calling] it a fundamental error, to make sanctification an evidence of justification: that it is to light a candle to the sun; that it darkens our justification; and that the darker our sanctification is, the brighter our justification is.” J ohn Flavel, “Vindiciarum Vindex: or, A Refutation of the Weak and Pertinent Rejoinder of Mr. Philip Cary,” in The Works of John Flavel (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2015), 3:557. This tendency grew out of what on the face of it seemed a laudable emphasis on the freeness of free grace, but which exceeded the Scriptures to neglect the exhortations to the believer to “work out their salvation with fear and trembling.” Thus, Scottish Covenanters like Dickson and English Puritans like Flavel were compelled to “discharge and free the free grace of God from those dangerous errors, which fight against it under its own colours.” Ibid., 3:551. 31 Dickson, T ruth’s Victory, 88. 32 See Morton H. Smith, “History and Critique of the Higher Life View of Sanctification,” in Sanctification: Growing in Grace, ed. Joseph A. Pipa and J. Andrew Wortman (Taylors: Southern Presbyterian Press, 2001), 105–28. 33 Ibid., 127.

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The Sum of Saving Knowledge is a timely corrective to contemporary equivalents, which argue that in sanctification the believer is essentially passive—that it is merely received by faith, and not something the believer is to strive for in the Spirit’s strength.34 For example, Tullian Tchividjian argues that “Sanctification is the daily hard work of going back to the reality of our justification.”35 While as we have seen, the Sum agrees that we should daily go back to the reality of our justification (and that is sometimes hard work!), that is only half of the channel of new obedience. “Sanctification is going back to the reality of our justification,” says Dickson, “in order to empower the hard work of obedience and mortification.” Sanctification for the Sum is not achieved by mere contemplation of Christ’s finished work (a mystical tendency more akin to the theosis doctrine of the Eastern Church). Such a method stresses the indicatives of the Gospel without its consequent imperatives. “For we are Christ’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, in order to do good works, which he prepared in advance that we might walk in them” (Eph 2:10). By contrast, the Sum emphasizes both the indicative and the imperative: "in order to do good works."

By stressing the right channel of new obedience in sanctification, the Sum did not only offer a corrective to antinomianism as an abstract polemical debate. It also provided pastors with a useful tool to help address related pastoral problems in the flock.

The Pastoral Context of T he Sum of Saving Knowledge

Theological debates within the Westminster Assembly and the academic publications of the day did not of course remain in the realms of academia—they eventually filtered down to the pews. Dickson and Durham’s concerns about sanctification in the Sum were not merely polemical; they were also pastoral.36 This pastoral concern is illustrated by the way in which the right channel of new obedience also appears in Covenanter casuistries, sermons and autobiographies of the period.

Covenanter Casuistries

While best known for his preaching and commentaries, David Dickson’s magnum opus was in fact a massive work of pastoral theology, the Therapeutica Sacra (1664). It was written as a casuistry, that is, a compilation of challenging pastoral questions he had been asked throughout a lifetime of ministry, many of them pertaining to sanctification. The following sample case studies from the work illustrate how the “right channel of new obedience” was used in pastoral counseling of sensitive consciences troubled by their lack of progress in holiness:

Case Study #1: Comparing degrees of sanctification. Dickson describes this condition as follows:

The true Converts’ doubt whether he be regenerate because he findeth himself not only far from the measure of Holyness which he observeth to have been in the saints commended in Scripture, but also of the Measure which some of His acquaintances have attained unto.37

34 See David Murray’s helpful discussion of current trends at at https://headhearthand.org/blog/2015/10/21/five-attractions-of-passive-sanctification/ and http://headhearthand.org/blog/2015/10/22/ten-dangers-of-passive-sanctification/ (accessed August 31, 2020). 35 Tullian Tchividjian, J esus + Nothing = Everything (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 95. 36 It should be remembered that the S um’s teaching on sanctification is found under the heading, “E vidences of True Faith. ” These pastors were interested in helping their flocks attain proper assurance of salvation, which was often hindered by an unconscious drift towards the two poles of legalism and antinomianism. 37 David Dickson, T herapeutica Sacra (Edinburgh, 1664), II, 26.

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Here we have a Christian comparing his progress in sanctification to others’ and wondering if he is a true believer. Dickson responds,

Let the afflicted consider that there are [different] degrees of the measure of Sanctification and growth in grace ... this doubting of the afflicted ... doth presuppose ... as if God did deal with his children according to the worthiness of their persons, and merit of their good works, which is a false supposition ... let him so much more lay hold on the imputation of Christ’s Righteousness, and cover his nakedness therewith, and employ Christ by faith so much the more, that out of His fullness he may receive grace for grace and be made by His Spirit to bring forth more abundant fruits, and come up nearer to conformity with Christ, and the examples of renowned saints.38

Pastor Dickson finds the solution to this common pastoral case in the right channel of new obedience. He tells them to stop basing their acceptance with God on the poor degree of their personal sanctification. Instead they are to look to their justification, by which they stand righteous before God, and then by faith they will “employ Christ” to pursue sanctification by His Spirit-imparted grace. In this way, “the afflicted” was counseled out of the wrong channel and into the right.

Case Study #2: A sense of inability to live a holy life. Dickson describes this spiritual condition as, “the Converts discouragement for felt [lack] of ability to do the duties commanded, whereunto his renewed will is very bent.”39 Here is another parishioner facing “the Romans 7 struggle”: he longs to keep God’s law but is cast down by his apparent lack of ability to do so. Again, Pastor Dickson responds with a practical application of the right channel of new obedience:

This case is not altogether evil... this much is right: that he looks upon the Law as holy, spiritual and good, that he desireth earnestly to obey it.... Yet this is wrong to him ... that he doth not make Christ his Sanctification as well as His Righteousness [justification], that he doth not consider of the Furniture [equipping] to be brought unto him from heaven by Faith in Christ.... Let Him trust Christ for supply in all service, in Whom if a man abide, he shall bring forth much fruit, and without Whom he can do nothing (John. 15:5).4 0

From these two case studies it is clear that for Dickson, the right channel of new obedience was more than a theological abstraction that helped enunciate the doctrine of sanctification; he skillfully used it as a pastoral tool to shepherd tender consciences towards a confident walk with God. Christ’s sheep were taught how to draw upon infinite resources of spiritual strength in their battles with sin by virtue of their organic union with Christ.

Covenanter Sermons

This emphasis of drawing grace from Christ for sanctification was found in the pulpit as well as the counseling room. Preaching on Philippians 3:12 (“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me”), Dickson says:

See the order he keeps. First, he would be at communion with Christ; and next, he would be devoted to sanctification, to teach us to seek sanctification in this order: First, take us to Christ, renouncing our own righteousness; then draw strength from him, and in his strength bring forth good fruits, and so be

38 Dickson, T herapeutica Sacra, II, 26. 39 Ibid., III, 22. 40 Ibid.

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renewed; … get righteousness from Christ; then crave new strength from him (for thou hast none of thy own), to be holy … and so get power to slay sin.4 1

Thus Covenanter ministers pressed personal holiness on their congregations, and did so via the right channel: taking them by the hand to Christ to be reminded of their justification and union with Him, and so to be sanctified through His strength, conveyed to them by His Spirit.

Covenanter Autobiography

Finally, having considered the right channel of new obedience from select works of one Covenanter pastor-theologian, we might well enquire how significant this emphasis was among the parishioners, and how effective it was in the covenanter pastors' ministries to struggling saints. Perhaps the best place to go to witness the personal reception of this doctrinal emphasis is the spiritual diaries and autobiographies of Covenanters who personally struggled with their sanctification.4 2

A particularly rich example of how Covenanters struggled to stay within the right channel of new obedience is found in the copious diary of Dickson’s friend, Archibald Johnston of Wariston (1611-63). The primary author of the Scottish National Covenant, Wariston’s confessional grasp of covenant theology was generally impeccable, but in practice he effectively conflated the covenant of grace and covenant of works in his struggle with legalism. Wariston’s law-keeping efforts were prodigious—obsessive journaling, praying up to seven hours a day, and feverishly listing his many sins daily so he could perform acts of repentance, which often came close to penance. Here was a Covenanter who was serious about his “new obedience.” But it did not run in “the right channel.”4 3

A much more positive example is found in Covenanter minister Robert Blair (1593-1666), a close colleague and friend of Dickson and Durham,4 4 whose autobiography describes the turning point it was in his Christian life to discover this right channel of new obedience:

I began to lament that so many like myself, who had fled from the pursuing wrath of God to Christ … yet, in order to their sanctification, knew little or nothing what use to make of him. Then began I in a serious way to study [Christ’s] person, his nature, his offices, and the several parts thereof; how he is made to us of God not only wisdom as the great promised prophet, righteousness as our justifier and absolver, but also sanctification as our king to reign in us, and working that which is well-pleasing in his sight. But especially the kingly office of Christ, in order to our sanctification, is most considerable, and that both in order to our enemies, Satan, sin, the world, and death ; and in order to ourselves, as a victorious King to reign in us, through the abundance of his grace, to make us kings and priests to the Father. Rev. 1.6. …4 5

41 David Dickson, S elect Practical Works of David Dickson (Edinburgh: John Greig, 1845), 183. 42 For a helpful analysis of this much-overlooked literature, see David George Mullan, N arratives of the Religious Self in Early Modern Scotland (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010); i dem., W omen’s Life Writing in Early Modern Scotland: Writing the Evangelical Self, c.1670-c. 1730 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2003). 43 G .M. Paul, ed., T he Diary of Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston, 1632-39 ( Edinburgh: Scottish Historical Society, 1911); David G. Whitla, A rchibald Johnston of Wariston: The Formation of a British Puritan (1611-38) (Unpublished PhD Thesis, Queens University Belfast, 2019). 44 For their relationship, see Robert Blair, L ife of Mr Robert Blair, ed. Thomas M’Crie (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1848), x-xi, 230, and 325-6. 45 Robert Blair, L ife of Mr Robert Blair, ed. Thomas M’Crie (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1848), 25-7. Italics mine.

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Then I saw that it was no wonder tho’ my not making use of faith for sanctification, as hath been said, occasioned an obstruction in the progress of holiness; and I perceived, that making use of Christ for sanctification, without direct employing of faith to extract the same out of him, was like one seeking water out of a deep well without a long cord to let down the bucket and draw it up again, or like … one that came to the store-house, but got my provision reached to me, as it were, thro’ a window. I had come to the house of mercy, but had not found the right door; but by this discovery I found a patent door, at which to go in and receive provision and furniture [equipping] from Christ Jesus. Thus the blessed Lord trained me step by step.4 6

Here is the personal testimony of a Christian who discovered the right channel of new obedience: that he did not have strength to be holy, but learned to go to Christ his King for daily supplies of grace in the battle with sin. The apostle assures us, “His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue” (2 Peter 1:3). And this is a discovery we too must make, so we can say with the psalmist, “I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart” (Ps. 119:32). We will surely find His supplies bestowed by the Spirit to be perfectly adequate for progress in our sanctification until the end of our earthly course.

And there too, at the end of life, Covenanters found this emphasis pastorally important. Consider one of the letters of Samuel Rutherford, which he penned to George Gillespie, another close colleague of Dickson. Rutherford shows that this Christ-centered emphasis in sanctification is not only vital to living by faith, but also to dying in faith, as we stand on the verge of glorification. Gillespie was on his deathbed, and was troubled by his felt lack of sanctification on the edge of eternity. So Rutherford reminded him of the right channel of new obedience:

My reverend and dear brother, look to the east. Die well. Your life of faith is just finishing. Finish it well. Let your last act of faith be your best act. Stand not upon sanctification, but upon justification. Hand all your accounts over to free grace. And if you have any bands of apprehension in your death, recollect that your apprehensions are not canonical.4 7

46 Robert Blair, M emoirs of the Life of Mr. Robert Blair (Edinburgh: Andrew Stevenson, 1754), 34-5. Italics mine. For an alternative transcription, see the McCrie edition, pp 33-4. While Blair testified that he had drawn these doctrines from Scripture by his own study, he also acknowledged his indebtedness to English Puritan Ezekiel Culverwell’s T reatise of Faith ( 1629) (McCrie ed., p.32). The M’Crie edition adds a discussion he held with his brother who questioned the origins of this nuance in the doctrine of sanctification, where he again acknowledged Culverwell (Ibid., 34). Blair’s friend William Row helpfully summarizes Blair’s reception of the “right channel”: “He was taught to make use of Christ, not only as our High Priest made of God, to be our righteousness, for our justification; but also to make use of Christ as our king for sanctification, being made of God to be our sanctification as well as our righteousness ... not only to make use of faith as a means to stir up to holiness by believing these motives, that the Holy Spirit in the word makes use of for stirring us up to holiness, but to make use of faith as a mean and instrument to draw holiness out of Christ, thus to be daily perfecting holiness, Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith, we being taught of God rightly to employ and make use of Christ and to give our faith both meat and work.” Robert Blair, L ife of Mr Robert Blair, ed. Thomas M’Crie (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1848), 113. 47 Italics mine. This oft-cited and much-abridged quote from Rutherford is cited in Robert Reyburn, “The Practice or the Seeking of Assurance” in R PM Magazine, Volume 16, Number 50, December 7 to December 13, 2014, accessed September 3, 2020, https://thirdmill.org/articles/rob_rayburn/rob_rayburn.Assure3.html. The original appears to be considerably more dense, and is given here in full: “[Your] believing now is your last [act of faith]. Look to that word, ‘Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me’ (Gal. 2:20). Christ by law liveth in the broken debtor; it is not a life by doing or holy walking, but the living of Christ in you … All your wants, dear brother, be upon Him: ye are His debtors; grace must sum and subscribe your accounts as paid. Stand not upon items, and small or little sanctification. Ye know that inherent

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When we stand on the shore of eternity, will we base our standing with God on the imperfect degree of our sanctification? Or will we take our stand on the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed to us by faith? When new obedience flows in this right channel of sanctification, it will be sure at last to reach the eternal shore of glorification.

holiness must stand by, when imputed is all.… Look to the east, the dawning of the glory is near.” Samuel Rutherford, L etters of Samuel Rutherford, ed. A.A. Bonar (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1891), 644. Bracketed words are based on Bonar’s gloss in the margin.

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Keeping Nothing Back Which May Promote Holy Ends: Westminster on Preaching and Sanctification Dr. Barry J. York

President and Professor of Pastoral Theology and Homiletics Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

Many of the influences streaming into modern preaching in the West downplay the necessity of holiness in the church. These tributaries come from various directions, forming a flood of thought in the church that gives the overall impression to those in evangelical churches that there is virtually no process between justification and glorification.

Arminian theology, still preached prevalently in American churches with its emphasis on the power of the human will, leaves its hearers underequipped in matters of sanctification. Whether it is the Wesleyan teaching of entire or instantaneous sanctification, dispensational influences that ignore the third use of the law of God, or the Baptist stress on regaining a lost salvation through responding to altar calls, preaching in many quarters of the evangelical church is adding confusion rather than clarification to matters of sanctification.

Reformed preaching is not immune from this confusion over sanctification. Though an encouraging influence in many ways, the more recent Christ-centered or gospel-centered preaching movement has strains of antinomianism present in it. A notable example is the teaching and downfall of Tullian Tchividjian, former pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church and author of the book Jesus + Nothing = Everything. The book title would be fitting for a work on justification, but the book’s topic is sanctification. Tchividjian’s confusion regarding sanctification and his stress on a lawless grace causes him to say things such as, “I like to remind myself and others that the only thing you contribute to your salvation and to your sanctification is the sin that makes them necessary. 1 This conflation of justification and sanctification causes Tchividjian to ignore and even deny the many means the Lord has given us to grow in holiness. 2

Even closer to home, the redemptive-historical preaching approach embedded in Reformed seminaries and churches has in a surprising way contributed to some of the neglect in treating sanctification in preaching. With its well-intentioned desire to reveal Christ in every text of Scripture, particularly in the Old Testament, the redemptive-historical method often overlooks the immediate moral applications, particularly in narrative preaching, with what Dennis Johnson calls its “helicopter approach” of hovering over the text. 3 The redemptive-historical preaching’s emphasis on the meta-narrative of the Bible often causing a detrimental treatment

1 Tullian Tchividjian, Jesus + Nothing = Everything , 2nd Edition (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2012), 104. 2 See Keith Evans’ article “How Sanctification Works: The Westminster Assembly and Progressive Sanctification” in this issue of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal. 3 Dennis Johnson, “The Case for Redemptive-Historical Preaching,” DM805: Preaching. Class lecture at Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, FL, July 13, 2015.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7.1 (Fall 2020) of the immediate narrative. The eagerness to see Christ in Biblical characters often removes the human connectivity congregations should have with those characters. Finally, because of its promoter’s persistent warnings against moralization in preaching, sermons can fail to bring moral force to their hearers. As an example, Sidney Greidanus (whose book Preaching Christ from the Old Testament both Dr. Williams and I use in teaching) states, "[I]f we make a sermon on the narrative of David and Goliath, we may not isolate this narrative from the flow of redemptive history and hold David up to the congregation as a hero." 4 In this famous story we should see the typology of Christ in the person of David, but does that prevent us from exhibiting the heroic faith of David and calling a congregation to follow his exemplary faith and conduct? Certainly the author of Hebrews did not think so! (see Heb. 11:32-34). A righteous desire in preaching to honor Christ and all that He has accomplished for us in salvation does not negate the duty to obey Him as we exist in union with Him. Preachers must strike the Biblical balance Paul gave to the church at Philippi: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13, ESV).

These tendencies are why all preachers should return to one of the most succinct, well-formulated, crystalline descriptions of preaching that exists. This formulation is found in the Westminster Directory of Public Worship in its section on preaching. A careful study of this document shows that from beginning to end there was a heavy emphasis by the Westminster Divines on holiness. What Sinclair Ferguson states about Puritan preaching is certainly present in Westminster’s description of preaching: “The Puritan minister realized that grace always leads to and commands duties … every indicative of grace gave rise in his preaching to an imperative of grace-filled obedience.” 5 Indeed, as the Directory urges, men are to preach God’s Word “Faithfully, looking at the honour of Christ, the conversion, edification (another word for sanctification), and salvation of the people, not at his own gain or glory; keeping nothing back which may promote those holy ends.” 6 From beginning to end in describing preaching, we can see this emphasis on sanctification in six unique ways in the Directory.

1. The Man: “Having His Senses and Heart Exercised”

As the section on preaching begins in the Directory, the minister of the Word is first addressed. The Directory states that, “according to the rule of ordination,” the minister should be gifted to teach, be trained in the original languages of Hebrew and Greek that the Word of God was recorded in, have knowledge of other subjects that will serve as “handmaid unto divinity,” and have a thorough knowledge of theology. These qualities are areas that schools of divinity or seminaries are designed to train men in.

Yet a final quality is then specified, and highlighted as more important than the ones already cited. The minister is to have knowledge “most of all in the holy Scriptures.” Yet this knowledge is not only to be in his head, for he is to have “his senses and heart exercised in them above the common sort of believers; and by the illumination of God's Spirit, and other gifts of edification.” Clearly, the preacher is to have achieved a heart affection for the Word of God, and shown by his understanding and obedience to the Scriptures that he is a sanctified man himself.

4 Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 238. 5 Mark Dever and Sinclair Ferguson, The Westminster Directory of Public Worship (Christian Heritage, 2008), 29. 6 Ibid., 97.

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The Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs, himself a Westminster Divine, taught such. In his classic work Gospel Worship, Burroughs uses the story of the judgment on Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10 to establish the need for consecrated holiness among ministers. Treating the Lord’s words found in Leviticus 10:3 that “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified,” Burroughs cautions that “the more the dignity of men is, the more is their danger if they look not to it. Let men that are in higher conditions then others look to themselves, for their danger is greater.” 7 In an age when many ministers are falling, and causing the sheep to scatter, the church must work more diligently at examining and then ordaining only men of sanctified character. As Baxter reminded the ministers of his day, “If it not be your daily business to study your own hearts, and to subdue corruption, and to walk with God—if you make not this a work to which you constantly attend, all will go wrong, and you will starve your hearers.” 8

2. The Message: “Making Most for the Edification of the Hearers”

The Directory then offers wise practical directions on the preparation of the sermon. From keeping the introduction “brief and perspicuous,” to raising “chief heads and doctrines from the text” that are not too many in number, to ensuring that any sermonic point is the “truth contained in or grounded on that text,” the Westminster Directory on Public Worship demonstrates in its homiletical instruction that it was penned by men who were wise preachers at heart, who offered to others these guidelines “as being found by experience to be very much blessed of God.”

In this section on the construction of a sermon, they also display a strong desire to encourage holiness in the sermon’s content. The Directory states that as the minister labors he must “chiefly insist upon those doctrines which are principally intended; and make most for the edification of the hearers.” The preacher’s message is to be so constructed that he is intentionally seeking to edify, or build up, his hearers in the Christian faith. In several places the Directory encourages the minister in speaking plainly so that his hearers will understand him, in order that “the consequence also from the text” will be made clear. In other words, the congregation must understand the outcome of obedience or disobedience to the message. Helpful cross references, in support of the doctrines from the text, are to be chosen carefully so that they are “applied to the purpose in hand.” Illustrations of the text “ought to be full of light” for the purpose of making the truth convey “spiritual delight” to the hearers’ hearts. Though potential stumbling blocks to the text are to be removed by the preacher, the Directory warns against trying to answer every evil objection raised, as the sermon could “more hinder than promote edification.” As these references indicate, the homiletical approach of the Westminster Divines was to seek to build every aspect of the sermon in a manner that best promoted obedient holiness.

3. The Mark: “Bringing it Home to Special Use”

What did the Directory encourage as regards to the mark aimed at in preaching? The minister was not to be content with simply aiming at “general doctrine,” but rather he was “to bring it home to special use, by application to his hearers.” Presenting truth to the congregation in a manner that anticipated a response was the protocol promoted by Westminster. Utilizing

7 Jeremiah Burroughs, Gospel Worship, or, the Right Manner of Sanctifying the Name of God: In General, and Particularly in These Three Great Ordinances: 1. Hearing the Word, 2. Receiving the Lord’s Supper, 3. Prayer (Orlando, FL: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2006), 13. 8 Richard Baxter and James I. Packer, The Reformed Pastor , ed. William Brown (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 61.

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“prudence, zeal, and meditation,” the minister was to craft his message in such a way that “his auditors may feel the word of God to be quick and powerful.” He writes his sermons expecting a response!

The Westminster Larger Catechism highlights the duties of those who hear the Word of God preached. Question 160 asks,

What is required of those that hear the word preached? Answer: It is required of those that hear the word preached, that they attend upon it with diligence, preparation, and prayer; examine what they hear by the scriptures; receive the truth with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind, as the word of God; meditate, and confer of it; hide it in their hearts, and bring forth the fruit of it in their lives (emphasis added).

Every minister, who has reached a place in his knowledge of the text where his “heart and senses are exercised in them above the common sort of believers,” cannot be content to remain there. He must desire that where he is in his consecration from the text and the Spirit, his congregation would come to that place also. In his classic work Sacred Rhetoric, Dabney puts it this way:

The preacher relies alone upon evangelical inducements, and refers every conviction of the reason ultimately to God’s testimony … the end of every oration is to make men do. But the things which the sermon would make men do are only the things of God. Therefore it must apply to them the authority of God. If your discourse ... does not end by bringing their will under the direct grasp of a “thus saith the Lord,” it is not a sermon; it has degenerated into a speech. 9

Ministers of the gospel are not only to preach the faith; they are to preach in faith that the Lord will bring their hearers under His influence. They are to preach with the belief and anticipation that members will respond to the Word of God in obedience.

4. The Method: “Exhorting to Duties”

The next section of the Directory on preaching has five paragraphs on sermonic material — on the general topics that would ordinarily be addressed by a minister. The first two areas of material in a message are the teaching needed to establish the point at hand, and then the potential stumbling blocks, such as erroneous teaching which a minister would have to address so that the truth can be received freely. But then duty is once again stressed in the following three areas. The minister is told in the next three paragraphs:

1. To “exhort [the congregation] to duties,” 2. To apply “dehortation,” to dissuade people from sinning, “reprehension,” to reprimand people for sinning, and “public admonition,” to warn them about sinning, and 3. In “applying comfort, whether general against all temptations, or particular against some special troubles or terrors,” always with the view that the hearers “may be quickened and excited to duty.”

In this section, the Divines reflect clearly the methodology of preaching in the spirit of the apostle Paul, who told Timothy, “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of

9 Robert Lewis Dabney, Sacred Rhetoric: Or, A Course of Lectures on Preaching. Delivered in the Union Theological Seminary of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S., in Prince Edward, Va (Presbyterian Committee for Publication, 1870), 34.

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/ Reformed Presbyterian Theological Journal 7.1 (Fall 2020) season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:2). Preaching is to be done in a direct manner, for you want listeners excited to the duty of growing in holiness. With the Assembly containing such preachers as Samuel Bolton who gave us The Sinfulness of Sin, Jeremiah Burroughs with T he Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment , and Thomas Goodwin and The Trials of a Christian’s Growth, just to name a few, it is no wonder that there is an emphasis on exhortation to holiness.

We need to remember the exhortation of John Angell James in his advice to preachers:

Our hearers must be made to feel that they are not merely listening to the discussion of a subject—but to an appeal to themselves—their attention must be kept up, and a close connection between them and the preacher maintained, by the frequent introduction of the pronoun “you,” so that each may realize the thought that the discourse is actually addressed to him. Many preachers do not come near enough to their congregations. 10

The Master Preacher, Jesus, certainly came near to His hearers. A prime example of Jesus' methodology in preaching is found in His most famous message, the Sermon on the Mount. Using the English Standard Version (I chose not to make this a Greek study but looked at Jesus' sermon as an English listener might do with a message), I categorized the first, second, and third person sentences Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount. 11 The results? Of the 117 sentences this sermon contains, Jesus used the first person 14 times, the third person 47 times, and the second person 56 times . Jesus predominately used the second person, in nearly half (48%) of His sentences. He spoke directly to them. “You are the light of the world.” “When you pray, do not stand on street corners.” “Love your enemy and pray for them” (Matt 5:14, 6:15, 5:44).

You cannot read the Sermon on the Mount without the sense that Jesus was imposing upon His hearers moral obligations. And we know what His aim was. “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20). “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

I did not count each sentence petition in the Lord's Prayer in this exercise. For the Lord commands His disciples “Pray then like this,” and then gives them the pattern to follow. Yet notice that the petitions in this prayer are all in the second person. Think about it—the Lord commands us to use the imperative as we approach God in prayer. Are preachers to do less when we approach men in preaching?

5. The Members: “Drawing Their Souls to Christ”

The next paragraph has much wisdom that Reformed preachers need to hear. The Directory states that the minister “needeth not always to prosecute every doctrine which lies in his text.” He does not need to say everything that could be said! For “he [is] wisely to make choice of such uses, as, by his residence and conversing with his flock, he findeth most needful and seasonable.” He must know and exegete his congregation, as well as the Scriptures, so that he chooses the proper “uses” or applications in his preaching. Then he is to be so mindful of his congregation as he preaches that he applies God’s Word in such a way that he “may most draw their souls to Christ, the fountain of light, holiness , and comfort.”

10 John Angell James, An Earnest Ministry (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1996), 127-8. 11 See https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UbyH1ZM3YXdxNOwe5sqy21YbB59u-UJV/view?usp=sharing for this document.

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That last statement is reflected in Westminster Larger Catechism Question 155: "How is the Word of God made effectual to salvation?" The answer starts: “The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of enlightening, convincing, and humbling sinners,” with “ drawing them unto Christ” a means of doing so. The glory and beauty of Jesus Christ must constantly be upheld before the congregation so that they are attracted to him. As Sinclair Ferguson states in The Whole Christ, “The benefits of the gospel are in Christ. They do not exist apart from him. They are ours only in him. They cannot be abstracted from him as if we ourselves could possess them independently of him.” 12 As Ferguson argues, “If Christ is not Lord of our lives, sanctifying us, how can he have become our Savior? 13

6. The Manner: “Framing all his exhortations in manner most likely to prevail”

This section on preaching in the Directory ends with adverbs or phrases describing the proper manner of preparing and delivering a message. Many of these admonitions speak directly to promoting holiness in the listeners. The minister is to preach “plainly… not in the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” so that the people can understand him and obey God’s word. He is to preach “faithfully” by “keeping nothing back which may promote holy ends” for the people. He is to preach “wisely” by “framing all his doctrines, exhortations, and especially his reproofs in a manner most likely to prevail.” He is to preach with “loving affection that the people may see all coming from his godly zeal, and hearty desire to do them good.”

In his critique on modern preaching, T. David Gordon said that many preachers can sound to their congregation as if they are against them instead of for them. 14 That should never be. The Larger Catechism Question 75 reminds us that sanctification comes by “the powerful operation of his Spirit applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them” so that they are “renewed in their whole man after the image of God” and “all other saving graces [are] put into their hearts.” Preachers should remind their hearers that both they and the Holy Spirit are for their sanctification. As Burroughs said to his congregation on one occasion, “You should so walk before men as to manifest to all the world that your Savior is a wonderful Savior.” 15

12 Sinclair Ferguson The Whole Christ, 44. 13 Sinclair Ferguson, Devoted to God: Blueprints for Sanctification (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2016), 9. 14 T. David Gordon, Why Johnny Can’t Preach (Philadelphia: P&R Publishing, 2009), 25. 15 Jeremiah Burroughs, Gospel Revelation (Orlando, FL: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2006), 177 .

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